The Hanging Tree
by readerwithableedingheart
Summary: Against all the odds Jay Tipper has won the 25th Hunger Games for his hometown of District 12 but the cost is far more than he could ever imagine.
1. Prologue: The Mocking Jay

_Things are going to get dark. Consider yourself warned._

_Dedicated to Hanieya for believing that my writing is awesome even when I'm pretty sure it isn't._

* * *

><p>I will be twelve.<p>

I am eleven for now. Eleven until the Reaping in just two hours.

I haven't stopped shaking since I woke up this morning. I told Mom it was because of the unexpectedly cool month.

But I think we can all guess the reason why.

"Steady now, Jay," Dad says, peering over my shoulder at the knots I make. "Let's just focus on what we need to do."

It was Dad's idea that we go trapping before the Reaping. It's not like our family doesn't need the money. But I know that in reality he is doing this for me. I need this. I need this silence before the world drowns me in noise.

I suppose Dad and I are alike in many ways, even beyond our physical similarities – that dark brown hair and green eyes that no one else seems to have for miles around. We both like nature far more than we ever liked humans and we'd both rather have silence than words.

The wind rises again, shrieking like a mockingjay through the air as I twist up the last snare. I try to close my eyes and focus on this wind and the trees and this place that I love more than anywhere else. But no matter what I do, I can't stop shaking.

We catch a rabbit not ten minutes later, its leg all twisted and bloodied. Dad hands me the knife and I go to kill, finding its small pulse beating so rapidly under my hand, the body going lax, eyes glazed over as if already accepting its fate. I raise my hand but I am shaking so badly that I can barely keep my hand raised, let alone kill this creature.

I lower the knife. "I'm sorry, Dad. I can't."

He takes both items from my fingers without a word and a moment later I hear the gurgle of the creature's dying breath. Dad hands me the corpse and I skin it in silence.

"There's nothing wrong with not being able to kill," he says once I'm finished.

I blink back at him. "Didn't say that there was."

We don't return home quite yet instead venturing deeper into the forest, farther than I've ever walked before, until we sit down at the edge of a cliff that peers out into the rolling land, nothing but trees and wilderness for miles and miles.

And any other day this would be enough. But today is still the Reaping.

Dad starts to whistle, the mockingjays repeating it back lovingly as if they know what a great treasure they are dealing with. And they are, everyone around here says that Dad has the best voice they've ever heard. He is always bent on trying to teach me some song or tune as if teaching them to me will also hand over his gift.

Today, after a few familiar tunes, he sings something else, something very strange:

_Are you, Are you_

_Coming to the tree_

_Where they strung up a man they say murdered three_

_Strange things did happen here_

_No stranger would it be_

_If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree_

_Are you, Are you_

_Coming to the tree_

_Where the dead man called out for his love to flee_

_Strange things did happen here_

_No stranger would it be_

_If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree_

_Are you, Are you_

_Coming to the tree_

_Where I told you to run so we'd both be free_

_Strange things did happen here_

_No stranger would it be_

_If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree_

_Are you, Are you_

_Coming to the tree_

_Wear a necklace of rope side by side with me_

_Strange things did happen here_

_No stranger would it be_

_If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree_

The mockingjays mimic it with perfection. The song sticks in my mind, something that touches me deeply in a way that no song ever has and so after a moment, I too sing it back. Instantly the mockingjays fall silent, peering at me intently. I halt to a stop.

"You have a better voice than mine," Dad says. "Even the mockingjays stop to listen."

"I'd rather they didn't instead of leaving me to echo my own song," I reply.

I am sure he is going to explain what it means and where it comes from, like he does with all of his songs, but instead he just turns around and we start heading back towards the fence.

But I find myself returning again and again to that song, its strange melody and lyrics haunting me, I whistle it louder and louder. The mockingjays gather around me, following me as I walk and then, just as I finish it for the fifth time, one of the smallest ones, a bird barely as big as my palm lets out the first few notes.

And the world explodes in song.

The rest join in, singing loud and free, stringing the notes together in more complex melodies than I have ever heard anything sing, filling the earth with their song, my song, and for the first time that day, I forget all about the Reaping. I feel so happy that I have finally made the mockingjays sing that I let out a laugh.

Dad turns suddenly and when I see his face, I take a step back for I have never seen him look so angry. The mockingjays almost seem to sense his anger too. They slowly taper off to silence.

He grabs me by the shoulders, almost lifting me off the ground. "You don't sing that here. Understand?"

His grasp is so tight, I can barely breathe. "Okay."

"You don't sing that ever unless you're out where no one can ever hear you. Understand?"

"Dad, you're hurting me."

"Understand?"

"Dad!"

He jumps at my shout and releases me. I fall to the ground, gasping, shaking all over. He stands there for a moment, almost dazed, before he kneels down to me, trying to touch my shoulder as a reassurance. I jerk away.

He sighs. "Jay, I'm sorry. But you have to understand. That song is illegal, if the Peacekeepers caught you singing that song, if they found you…" he trails off.

"Why'd you teach it to me in the first place then?" I snap.

"I…" He sighs again and pauses for a moment. "I wasn't thinking," he says finally. "I'm sorry. You're going to be late for the Reaping. Let's go." He gets to his feet and starts walking.

I comply, but I do have to ask, "What does it mean?"

He stops.

"I mean, why is it illegal to sing?"

He turns around slowly. "It's a rebel song. They taught you about the Dark Days in school, correct?"

I nod my head. "Why we have the Hunger Games."

"Well," he says with a small smile on his face, "let me tell you a version they certainly don't tell you in school.

"The districts were like fire, burning with hatred and vengeance from the years of abuse they had suffered at the hands of the Capitol. They burned bright and strong but the cold calculated fury of the Capitol was stronger. Those in the Capitol; they hurt, they killed, they destroyed. And as bright as a fire can be, it can also be so quickly snuffed out.

"In the final years, as the rebellion came to a close, many rebels were rounded up, killed in mass numbers. What do you think they sang?"

"This one." I look at Dad carefully. I have never heard someone speak so against the Capitol, it almost makes me afraid.

"Of those who were killed, your great-grandfather was among them. He let himself be captured because he couldn't bear to be in a world where his freedom was nonexistent."

"Our family…was part of the rebels?" I have always been told that my great-grandfather died in an accident while illegally hunting. This is something else entirely.

He nods his head. "But your grandfather, my father, believed differently. He was able to hide his tracks, to renounce his ways. I was only a child when it all happened but I still remember so very clearly. He was a blacksmith before the mine, he used to make all sorts of weapons for the rebels. We had to use codes and messages, because of the jabberjays. The violence in those days…"

He shakes his head and turns away while I stand here, amazed that I have never learned this part of my father ever before. But I suppose it's not something we could ever easily talk about.

"What was it like before the Games?" I ask quietly.

"It was nice," he says, "even if I only knew it for such a short time. I was just your age when the Games began."

We are silent for several long moments.

He turns to me again. "It wasn't that he didn't believe in the rebellion anymore, far from it. But he knew that in order for his family to survive, he had to pretend otherwise. Out of those days of rebellion and defiance, our family has only one thing."

He unzips his jacket and unpins this golden token from the inside of his shirt, handing it to me though I can already see what it is.

A mockingjay. I smile. Of course.

"The fire of the rebellion may have been snuffed out," he continues, "but what can happen with fire, especially forest fires?"

My mind clicks it all together. "They can burn, just underneath the surface where no one can see. Those are dangerous fires. One moment the world seems safe, the next, there is nothing but flames surrounding you and there is no escape."

He nods his head and smiles. "That is the meaning of the mockingjay," he leans forward and puts his hands on my shoulders. "When you were born, you were such a small thing. You weren't even breathing much less making a sound. We thought for sure that you were gone. But then you starting crying, fighting your way back to us. We had five children before you, all of them dying at birth or soon after. But no matter what fever you caught, no matter what happened to you, you always came back fighting, existing when everyone said you shouldn't. Like the rebellion. Like the mockingjay. And that's why I named you Jay. The rebellion will come again. I pray you will live to see it."

I feel so foolish that I never understood until now, my name, the meaning, and I don't say anything but look down at this small piece of resistance and smile. After a moment, I hand it back but Dad shakes his head.

"You keep it," he says. "It belongs with a mockingjay after all."

He starts walking again and I follow, matching his paces, pinning the jay to the underside of my shirt. It is only once we've crossed the fence that I realize I'm not shaking anymore.

It was one of the last times I would ever be so proud of my father.


	2. After: Nightmares From the Fallen

It was my eighteenth birthday. Funny that.

I woke up screaming. Danila's name that time. But no matter how I yelled or pulled or did anything, he always died and then they came for me, their eyes pitted in the darkness, their arms and legs stretching longer and longer. They reached for me and I desperately tried to push them away, begging them to stop.

That's when I heard Yondrie's voice, low and soothing, "Shh, Jay, everything's alright, it was just a dream, it was just a dream…"

I shuddered with relief, exhausted from my fight.

"Which one was it this time?" she murmured into my hair.

I shook my head. I didn't want to talk about this one or any of them or anything. I was tired of acting like a child who had to be constantly soothed and coddled and couldn't ever sleep by himself.

I was just plain tired.

I stumbled out of the bed, mumbling something or other about being fine and needing something to eat before walking down the stairs and unlocking the door. I stopped at the porch, leaning against the railing, breathing in great lungfuls of the sharp snowy air as my head slowly cleared.

It was just a dream. It wasn't real.

But it was real once.

I couldn't say when exactly the nightmares began after the Games but they certainly seemed to accelerate as more time passed, not slow down. It made me suspect the real reason victors were given their own village was not as a mark of distinction, but rather to keep the rest of the district from hearing their screams.

Yondrie and I were married as soon as possible after the Games – both our feelings and the Capitol's sentiments made sure of that – and after a month of my screams and sobs of names and faces she would never know, she took me to the doctor.

That was a new experience for both of us. We had never had enough money in our lives until then to even consider a doctor.

"I am very worried," she had said to him as if I wasn't even there. "He barely sleeps, never mind eating. He speaks in his sleep and has even taken to sleepwalking recently, sometimes walking down the pathway outside our house. There has to be something you can do to stop this."

The doctor, too, was equally concerned, most likely because he had never seen any other victor besides me. He instantly prescribed morphling, hoping that would calm me down enough to sleep.

It did. But it also had the added side effect of leaving me completely detached from the world. After a week where I did nothing but stare at the cracks in the walls, Yondrie decided she liked me far better when I was screaming and promptly destroyed all the remaining morphling in the house.

As far as she knew, I hadn't taken it since then. But after a taste of peace, however artificial, this was something too good for me to pass up on. Fortunately the doctor felt enough pity to keep giving me some of his supplies and whenever I could without Yondrie becoming too suspicious, I took some.

Like right now.

The needle was instant relief, shutting out the cold and exhaustion. What was I so frightened about only moments before? I couldn't remember anymore. It didn't matter. Nothing seemed to matter anymore.

It felt like days but it must have been only a few minutes when the door opened and Yondrie stepped out.

"Jay, get back inside this instant, you are going to freeze death out here."

I couldn't help but smile. "Yes, mother. Anything else?"

"Your lips are currently turning blue and yes, the prep team is going to be here in three hours so you'd better be ready by that time and preferably not bluish."

"I make no promises." She went to go back inside. "Oh, by the way, I need to go into town before we leave."

I only heard her voice echoing within the house, "Well, do it now for heaven's sake! They won't be pleased if you're not here when they broadcast and I swear, I won't say anything to defend you."

I laughed and went to go back inside. I may have been unlucky in so many parts of my life but Yondrie was a gift I never deserved. How she put up with me is something I will not ever be able to understand.

* * *

><p>Going into town was something I had begun to hate.<p>

It wasn't always like that. But of course, that was Before. Before I was the son of Nathaniel and Assandra Tipper, a quiet boy who smiled and nodded and was nothing but sweet. Now I was a victor, the first and only of my district. People stared at me with pity and whispers if I was lucky. If I wasn't, they were either fearful or filled with contempt.

They all knew what I had done in the Games, after all.

Even Kit was different when I bumped into him, winding my way down into the Seam. We stood there for a moment, he in his miner clothes and me dressed like a merchant. His eyes flashed with recognition but they were guarded and wary and maybe even a little bit fearful. I wanted to say something to him, anything to reassure him I was still me but as soon as I caught my voice he was off down the road with the rest of the miners on their way to work. I didn't move until I saw the flash of Dad's green eyes go with them.

The house was as I had left it six months ago, all worn and weary and splintered. It was funny, when I lived in it I thought it was perfectly fine. But after seeing the Capitol, and living in the Victor's Village, I realized how poor we had been all those years.

Mom was in the kitchen and could only hear the door creak open.

"Nathaniel," she laughed, "did you miss me already? You know, if you want to stop being late at the mine, you should probably-"

She stopped as soon as I came into view. Since leaving so soon after the Games I hadn't seen her nor she I. I knew I must have looked different, older, exhausted from my lack of sleep, and maybe even starting to show signs of my addiction to morphling because she gave me such a pitiful look as she dropped her knife and grabbed me in a fierce embrace.

"Jay," she whispered. "What on earth are you doing here?"

In response, I pulled out the envelope, still wet from the snow, placing it on the table.

"Half of my earnings."

She picked it up, pulling out the money. She shook her head. "Jay, we can't accept this."

"You will," I said, harsher than it was meant to be. "I know you need the money and I have more than enough for myself and Yondrie. Take it. I won't let you give it back."

She looked at me for a moment, accessing whether I could be moved or not, before nodding her head and putting the money in her pocket. "Thank you."

We didn't say anything for a long while, trying to avoid the one topic that was left to talk about.

"Your father," she said finally, speaking the word. "I think maybe if you talked to him, maybe you could work things out."

"No. I am never talking to him again. Not after what he did. Not now. Not ever!" I wasn't sure when I started yelling but I was and it shook the house in fury.

And that's when she gave me that look, only for a fraction of a second but a look nonetheless of fear and contempt rolled into one.

I dropped my head. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell like that."

"Jay," she said, placing her hands on my shoulders and I was sure she was going to start at me again but she simply said, "We are grateful for the money. Now go home and get some rest before the Victory Tour. I have the feeling you're going to need it."

I smiled. "I love you, Mom."

"I love you too, Jay."

I was almost out of the house before I heard her voice one last time.

"Oh, and Jay? Happy birthday."

I didn't say anything but I smiled nonetheless as I walked all the way back to the Victor's Village.

True to Yondrie's predictions, the prep team was already there and she did nothing to stop them as they threw their frustrations upon me.

"Honestly, Jay, what were you thinking? What if the cameras had started rolling before you had even returned?"

"I suppose Capitol citizens would have died in disappointment," I said.

"Jay, now really, be serious. This is an important event which all of the country will be watching, including the new President."

And that was exactly what was getting me so worked up. I knew the President couldn't be happy with what had gone down in the Games and I was highly suspicious that he would get me to pay tenfold, most likely with my life and probably when I least expected it. That was just as much contributing to my sleepless nights and constant vigilance as memories of the Games.

I really needed a hit of morphling at that moment. But with all those people around and with the morphling tucked away in my luggage, I knew that was not going to happen anytime soon.

"All set," the prep team finally told me and I walked out of there, waving to the cameras, smiling, and gritting my teeth the whole way to the train.

It was only once there that I breathed again and sank into one of the chairs in utter exhaustion.

"You look worse for wear," I heard a familiar voice say and despite all the fear and pain of the day, I had to feel some happiness.

"Mags," I said, looking up. "Am I glad to see you."


	3. Before: Reaping What You Sow Part 1

I am seventeen the year of my Games.

It starts with mandatory viewing. You can always tell when those days come because the streets turn deadly silent with only the Peacekeepers' footsteps to break it. Those days come like unfeeling clockwork, especially near the Games.

But today it is mandatory and the Games are still more than a month away.

"As you all know, this year marks the 25th anniversary of the Hunger Games," President Laurent says, with Vice-President Snow at his side, and the Panem signature behind them like this is all so normal. "In accordance with what is written in the Treaty of Treason, on every 25th anniversary of the Games we will be having a Quarter Quell."

That comes as strange. I have heard the Treaty of Treason repeated every year and never did I hear anything about a 'Quarter Quell' or whatever this nonsense is, but I don't dare say that.

Mom sits up, making the remainders of the sofa we are sitting on creak and shudder. I see the fear in her eyes. I see it somewhat in Dad's too but mostly I see the grinding of the mine there. I wonder sometimes if they didn't used to worry, back when I was still a small child or even before then, when they didn't have kids at all. I don't remember. I don't remember anything except the Games.

"For this Quarter Quell and every one hereafter, there will be a change in regulation, however slight or large, to keep remembrance of the Dark Days renewed in everyone's mind. This year's Quarter Quell will be…" Vice-President Snow goes to retrieve a box that is just off screen, opening it for the President. Within are dozens of envelopes, too many to count, all with a different 25 year written on them. It's sickening. I try to imagine the Games for a hundred years, five hundred, a thousand, and the cost is too great, too painful to bear.

As the President takes out the very first envelope, I start to wish I had found a lock to fix or trap to untangle or something from the Hob like I usually do when anything about the Games are on because I don't want all my attention on this, the last thing I want is to be watching this.

He opens the envelope, clears his throat, and continues, "This year because you chose to rebel against the Capitol, you will now choose the tributes for your district. On Reaping Day, mandatory voting will be held for everyone over 19. Men will be voting for the male tribute and women will be voting for the female tribute. The tribute you vote for must be within the usual age restriction of 12 to 18 and must not have won any of the previous Hunger Games. The…"

He goes on. He does so until he steps off the screen and the television goes to static, the buzz filling the entire room. But everything seems to fade away with that. Voting? For our tributes?

This is far worse than any Reaping ever was.

"He can't do that," I hear myself say, "can he?"

Dad presses his lips together. "He can do whatever he damn well pleases." He stands and walks outside now that the transmission is over. Mom pats my hand.

"Don't worry. They're not going to take you," she says and I get the feeling she is saying it more to herself than to me. "They're not."

* * *

><p>Yondrie.<p>

Her light gray eyes hold mine as we lean against the buildings near the square. People go to and from, shopping and living and trying to avoid the Peacekeepers that roam so freely. Rumor has it that there has been rebellion in some of the other districts which explains both the resurgence of so many Peacekeepers and perhaps even this Quarter Quell nonsense. The Capitol wants to show who is in charge.

But neither Peacekeepers nor people notice this couple leaning against the wall, their hearts so entwined they cannot be undone without ripping one or both of them apart.

"This is the best thing that could have happened," Yondrie says. "Now your name won't be entered in twenty-four times against all those who have only four or five."

I shake my head, looking around. "This is worse. Now we will be betrayed by our own neighbours."

"We won't," she says, rolling her eyes. "Kids from the Seam are too unknown. Probably some rich merchant kid will be, though." She lowers her voice conspiratorially, "I wonder which one."

I am silent for a moment, my eyes roving over the crowd, unresponsive to her remark. But inside, my heart is beating faster, my mind jumping at the thought.

There is only one reason why I always protest the Games so, why I always refuse to watch them, and why I always distract myself if I am forced to do so. It is because in the most sickening way I am entertained by them, as much as a Capitol citizen must be and sometimes I wonder if even more so. Never could I tell Yondrie that I have thought over many times what the best Games scenario would be, who the best tributes would be, and now, what would be the best strategy for voting.

In my heart I know the Games are sick but something about them always gets me so excited, like danger or adventure or, when I admit my more dark fantasies to myself, perhaps even the blood and death.

"Jay, are you alright? You're shaking."

"I'm fine," I snap a little too quickly, "and to your comment, no matter if some messed up merchant kid is voted into the Games or not, they will always still be wrong."

"Shh!" She jerks at my coat, darting her eyes back and forth. "Are you insane? What if a Peacekeeper hears?"

I shrug my shoulders. "Maybe I don't care."

"Well you should," and here she finally smiles, "I won't have you dead until we are married."

I smile back. "I am not going anywhere, least of all with a Peacekeeper."

"Well, you don't know that. None of us know that," she whispers, her fingers entwining with my hair, pulling me closer. "So why can't we get married now?"

I sigh, knowing we're going to go through this entire conversation again. It's not like I don't want to get married to her, but I also don't want me dying and her left with our child and no source of income, or worse still, her slaughtered in the arena. "Once we're nineteen, Yondrie. I promise."

She looks at me pleadingly. "But that's so far away, Jay…" I kiss the crown of her head but she's still trying to be mad at me. "You're not answering my question!"

"Which one?" I murmur, trailing kisses down her jaw and neck. "As I recall, your previous sentence was not a question."

"Jay…"

And then I'm kissing her, really kissing her, and I think any second she's going to stop me and tell me to answer her question already. But she kisses me back and we stand there for an eternity.

She pulls back. "What was that for?" she asks, laughing.

I just smile back. "Come on," I say, "let's go someplace warm."

* * *

><p>I probably never would have met Yondrie if it hadn't been for Kit. Well, Kit and my family's abject poverty.<p>

Kit's from the Seam too and we have been friends ever since the start of school. Both of our fathers work in the mine together so we have nothing but boundless time alone in the woods, and to be fair most of that time we spend hard at work. I trap and Kit uses a bow and arrows, one he had found in the woods, remnants of wars or people killed and arrested by Peacekeepers, their stash left to be raided by others. He was alright, when he actually hit his target. Most of the time he missed.

"Well, why don't you try?" he huffed at me once when I had made fun of him. "All you do is sit on your ass making traps all day. Come on over and prove me wrong."

He held out the bow to me and I almost took it. But I knew that hunting reminded me far too much of the Games.

Instead, I smirked. "You're right, Kit," I said, laughing. "I'm all talk and no deeds. The reason I don't use a bow is because it would make you look like a decent archer!"

He snapped an arrow over my head for that.

At the end of every hunt we pulled in our game at the Hob, almost always sharing it equally and dividing the spoils over who needed what most.

The Hob was run and owned by a large extended family, though who you dealt with on a daily basis was usually Yondrie. Ever since she was a young girl she had been making the deals for the game, usually with some sharp remarks in-between which always caused her father to laugh, clasp her shoulders, and say, "That's my girl!"

Her mother had died – or at least that's what people said – and one day when she was about twelve or thirteen, her father too just disappeared.

That happens far too often in this district.

But no matter her words or her history, in the end, Yondrie always gave a fair deal. At least that's what I thought until I was about fifteen.

"I am so lucky to be friends with you," Kit said to me once as we walked out of there with two new pairs of boots and enough food to last us to the end of the week.

"Oh," I said with some amusement, "and why exactly is that?"

"Because of Yondrie's crush on you."

I stopped right in my tracks.

"What?!"

"Oh, lay off it, Jay," he said, laughing. "You can't say you haven't noticed. The way her eyes always look at you, the way she blushes when you talk to her, the way she gives more for your game than anyone else."

"Really?" I was still trying to wrap my head around this concept. Yondrie, having a crush on me? Why? What did she possibly see in me? Not that I really minded…

"If you don't believe me, I'll show you next time."

"Good," I said. "Because you are talking big here."

And we did. The next time we went hunting we split the game instead of pooling it. And when we went into the Hob, we behaved like we had been hunting separately too.

"Beat you to it, Tipper," he said as we walked in. "Admit it, my skills far surpass yours."

"Never!" I said. "You may have quantity, but I, my friend, have quality."

Yondrie was with another customer at that moment but she looked up once she heard our voices, her eyes flitting over Kit and then staying pinned on me.

Could it be then? Did she really have a crush on me?

I felt like smacking that stupid grin off of Kit's face.

She dropped her eyes once I returned her gaze, going back to her customer at hand.

"…for the last time, Jim, no. That's all you're getting. You're lucky you even have this place to trade in."

The man scowled and left, taking his supplies with him.

Alright. Just because Kit was right once didn't mean he was going to be right again. He stepped up with his game.

"Right, what you looking to trade for?" she asked but he just leaned onto the counter with this really stupid look on his face that again made me want to smack him.

"Darling," he said, looking up into her eyes, "I know it is too much to ask for. I know it is, but my mother's birthday is coming up and alas, we have nothing to get for her. And I was wondering if perhaps you would maybe help me get her a cake?"

She did not look pleased. "A cake?" she repeated. "You want me to trade this trash in for a cake? Do you even know how much sugar itself goes for?"

He looked at her in mock shock. "Offensive!" He leaned down to protect his game as if could hear her remarks. "I lovingly killed these creatures with all of the strength and manly prowess within me. Is it so much to ask that they be traded in to give my mother a nice birthday?"

She seemed unimpressed. "I could have killed these creatures with all the manly prowess within me."

"Yondrie," he said, stretching out her name like it was a key to a lock. "Yondrieeeee. Cut me some slack here, eh? You know, you're the prettiest girl I talk to."

"I'm the only girl you talk to."

I couldn't help it, I let out a snort of laughter there though I quickly turned it into a bout of coughing.

"And besides," she continued, ignoring me, "I know your mother's birthday was last month so what are you really after, Bennett?"

He scowled, all trace of his previous saturation gone. "Guess I'm just here to buy a new string for my bow."

She looked through her inventory and gave it to him, bidding him a rather sarcastic farewell.

My turn now.

Why was it that I was the one feeling nervous now as she locked eyes on me? What was it that was making me suddenly think and rethink every word I was going to say to her?

A good contributing factor might have been Kit leaning up near the counter, making a huge show of restringing his bow. By the time I was finished with him, he was going to have bruises for weeks.

"Uh," I said to Yondrie, throwing up the game onto the counter. "Hey."

Why did I say that? Had I ever said that before?

"Hey," she said back, her eyes flicking up to me for only a moment with a slight smile on her face. Was it just me or was she blushing?

Kit's bow let off a twang, startling both Yondrie and I.

"Sorry," he said. "This bow is sure acting up today."

Many, many, many, many, many bruises.

She rifled through my game. "What do you want for this, Tipper?"

"As much as this'll get me."

"This'll get you two loaves of bread and a jar of jam."

I shifted on my feet. "Look, Yondrie, I know that I asked for more last week too, but my family…my family's not doing so good right now."

I hated doing this for such a petty little bet. I had asked her to stretch my game before but only in the direst of situations, when my family hadn't eaten in several days. We could always use more food but I wasn't one to ask for a handout when we could clearly make it on our own.

But still, as much as this was wrong, I did really want to know if Kit was right.

Her mouth dropped open. "Really? Really?! First Jim, then Kit, and now you? Do I just have a sign around my neck that's informing you all to harass me?!"

I raised my hands in defence. "Alright, alright. Point taken. Sorry I asked."

But even as I said it, she went back and fetched me two more loaves.

"That gonna be enough for ya?"

"Yes. Thanks. Really, I mean it." And I did.

"Yeah, well, don't mention it." There again I swore for just a second she blushed.

"So, was I right or what?" Kit said just after we had left.

I laughed. "This proves nothing other than the fact that you are a lousy negotiator, which you are by the way."

He shook his head. "You are blind, there is no other explanation. Now, let's always pool our game and never speak of this incident ever again."

But I found that I couldn't forget about Yondrie, no matter how I tried. She was the one who was supposed to have a crush on me but I found I was the one who was always catching her eye. She was the one who was supposed to be flustered by my presence but I was the one who was infatuated with her every word, every jib and witticism and laugh. She was the one who supposedly blushed at my voice but I was the one who couldn't stop thinking about her every second of every day.

I went there almost every day eventually, lingering as long as possible, to the point where Kit threw up his hands and said, "I admit it, I was wrong to ever tell you that she liked you. All you do now is spend your time at that damned Hob."

And then finally one day, I had had enough.

"Do you ever leave the Hob?" I asked once as I threw my large assortment of game from the day onto the counter, which I may or may not have compiled to impress her. "Whenever I come in, you're always stuck behind this counter."

"So?" she said, raising her eyebrows. "It's not like I have anywhere better to be. What are you looking to trade in for?"

"So? There's a lot more out there than this warehouse and I want that watch you have right there," I said, indicating to the gold one, almost rusted shut.

"This warehouse is my entire life and I enjoy it here and there's no way in hell you are getting that watch for just this game, hand's down."

"Have you even been outside the Fence? And that watch is a present and it has enormous significance to me, please let me have it."

"I don't need to go outside the Fence to have a life and no, no, no, there is nothing you can say that will make me give you this watch. Nothing."

I smiled. "Why don't I show you?"

"Show me what?"

"I'll take you outside the Fence this Saturday. I teach you to trap, what it's like and in exchange, for that and this game, you give me that watch."

She sighed, sifting on her feet and chewing her lip, considering it carefully before nodding her head. "Fine. But I decide when I think the watch is paid and not a moment before. So get ready to teach me for weeks. And you'd better be good."

"Oh," I said. "I am."

So that Saturday and every single one after, I took her outside the Fence and taught her to trap and at the end she always told me that my payment on the watch was close but not quite completed. And it was funny what we told each other that we never told anyone else, how her mother had disappeared, not died, when she was young and that her father had said she'd gone to District 13 even though that was impossible. How her father had been arrested for purported treason and never seen again. How my family had been part of the rebels and we were never allowed to talk them. About the cold, painful, restless nights when we had no food in our stomachs. And I loved how she never asked why I never hunted or used weapons and I never asked whether she missed her parents.

After a month, she turned to me at the end of our Saturday and said, "Well, Jay, I suppose you have finally paid your watch off." She pulled it out of her pocket, now rust free, and slipped it into my hand. "I suppose I won't need to go trapping with you every Saturday anymore."

I looked at it and promptly put it back in her hand. "Oh no, perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I want a design on it too."

"A design? What sort of design would you possibly want to put on a watch?"

I smiled and flipped up the cuff of my shirt, showing the mockingjay pin, "How about this one?"

She looked at it for a moment before shaking her head. "That's going to cost ya."

I flipped down my shirt. "Oh, I expect it will."

And so every Saturday after that, she carved my mockingjay while I told her the story of the pin and then when she begged, I sang that song.

The Hanging Tree.

And for the second time in my life, all the mockingjays burst into song with me.

"I've never heard anything like it before," she said after a moment. "It's almost as if the mockingjays were born to sing your songs."

"Oh, they don't," I replied. "In fact, that's the only song of mine they sing back."

And I sang every song I knew to prove it.

At the end of that month, she gave me the watch gleaming with a mockingjay encircled on top.

"This is beautiful," I said, looking at it for a moment more before handing it back to her. "Here you go."

She raised her eyebrows. "For me?"

"Well, I said it was a present, did I not?"

She shook her head but she smiled all the way to her eyes.

"I have a confession to make," I whispered into her ear. "I think I've fallen in love with you."

"I have a confession to make too," she whispered back before kissing me for the very first time. "I've been in love with you from the start."

* * *

><p>The one problem with our love, the one thing that tugs at me when no one is looking, is the Reaping.<p>

Now I worry not just for myself and Kit but Yondrie too. Yondrie is worse though because if she was called, there would be nothing I would be able to do except volunteer and sacrifice my life to try and save hers.

On my darkest nights I have nightmares about it, seeing her reaped and then watching with helplessness on a screen as she is slaughtered. The only thing scarier is when the real thing occurs, the rustle of paper before the name while my fear eats me alive and then my sigh of relief, no matter how cruel, that it is not her.

And only in those moments do I get a glimpse into the pain my parents must feel in watching the Reaping every year; hoping, praying, pleading, that I am not chosen.

It must be hell.


	4. Before: Reaping What You Sow Part 2

I get the idea that the adults must be talking about which kid to vote for because there's a lot more whispering going on between Dad and visitors and a lot of times when he simply isn't there. Asking Mom results only in a vague, "He's busy."

A couple of times I wake in the middle of the night to hear Mom and Dad talking about something heatedly, but the words don't reach my brain and they always subside by the time I am awake enough to hear it.

The Reaping is strange process, different from any other year. At the crack of dawn, all of the kids are checked in, roped off into their own separate sections. I stand beside Kit silently. I swear this is the only day of the year where he has no smart comment to add to the situation at hand.

The adults line up in front of the Justice Building to vote, men on our side and women over on the girls' side. I can't really see how the voting works but it seems to be done electronically which is only confirmed by the presence of two extra people from the Capitol, one circling the males and the other the females who hold some sort of electronic device in their hands which they consult often. Every once and a while after doing this, they tap a child on their shoulder and whisper something into their ear resulting in the child leaving their section and going into the ecstatic arms of their parents.

The message is clear then. Whoever is tapped on the shoulder has not received enough votes to conceivably be a tribute.

My shoulders become taught, awaiting the tap that means my freedom but the voting is such an arduously slow process. I suspect they made it so for the viewers in the Capitol so that they can all watch and wonder and agonize over which child is going to be picked and why.

I place my hand on my shirt, right overtop of where I keep the mockingjay pin, like I do when they read the Treaty of Treason or when they pick the names on a usual Reaping, to remind myself, even if only I know, that I do not condone what is happening, even if I am entertained by it.

My mind wanders. I think about supper. I think about Yondrie. I think about how I would knot up a trap. Over and over and over.

The first section to be emptied out on either side is the twelve-year-olds, thankfully, and follows upwards mostly by age, though there are exceptions. Milo Simmons, who is eighteen, is one of the first to be dismissed from our section since everyone knows that he has the mind of a small child. Rict Porter, on the other hand, who is just barely fourteen, is the only one still standing in his row since most people have heard and seen the violence he perpetuates against others without remorse.

People are voting to kill off their tribute. Just the thought is too disturbing to contemplate and I try to shove it back to a place where I will never find it again.

About halfway through the proceedings I see Yondrie getting tapped on the shoulder and breathe a huge sigh of relief. She and I exchange a glance and she smiles encouragingly at me. If she's off the list, I most likely will be soon too.

When I see the Capitol woman for the boys' section coming down our row, I think that this is it, this is when I finally get to leave and not think about this any longer. But she taps Kit on the shoulder and moves on without another thought. Kit shoots me a sympathetic glance but quickly scampers off to the side, leaving me alone.

A small glance around tells me that both sections have emptied far more than I first realized. The large majority of people left in either section are either seventeen or eighteen.

For the first time it comes to me that my name was one of those tossed around by the adults for voting. Most likely more than once. And most likely the reason Mom and Dad were arguing.

I didn't know this many people knew who I was, much less wanted me dead. I am mostly known by those who either frequent the Hob or know my father from the mine. Sure, I got into a few fights when I was younger and one time I read a poem right here in front of the Justice Building in remembrance for some miners who had died. There people would know my name, would recognize my face.

Unless they know my secret.

No. That's impossible.

It can't be me. The Games would turn me to madness, into someone unrecognizable, and everyone I know would be standing right here, watching.

I have no chance. We've never had a victor. I'm going to die.

Five of us left in the boy's section now. Just me and Rict and a couple of boys in the eighteen row.

But I already know who's going to be picked. I know by the knot in my stomach, growing and growing, that awful, horrible, sinking feeling.

Then there's just me and Rict.

Then just me.

Out of nowhere, Peacekeepers materialize, one on either side and I know I have to push everything away, just act for the cameras and pretend like this is what I wanted. Pretend like I was supposed to get picked.

Pretend like my neighbors didn't just betray me.

"Jay!"

I flip around at the wild desperation of that voice though the Peacekeepers keep me from running off. Because I know that voice. I know that voice better than my own.

"Stay back, Yondrie! Everything's fine!"

But she's already broken out from the crowd of people, walking towards me with tears running down her face and I'm so afraid of what the Peacekeepers will do to her.

One appears from the crowds and grabs her arm, roughly pulling her back and now I really am fighting the ones on me, trying to get to her before she does something foolish.

However in a stroke of luck she breaks free and bolts towards me and for one brief second we are together again, kissing and holding each other so tightly we might break. I don't care that all of Panem is watching, all I want is her.

Then she is snatched away, for good this time, and they're practically dragging me to the stage.

"Don't hurt her! Yondrie, just stay back!"

I can hear murmurs and whispers as the escort for our district, Georgia Fletcher, tries to speak overtop. I can hardly hear, everything is moving too fast and I'm still trying to convince myself that this is really happening. I narrow my gaze, just trying to focus on one step at a time.

Stone. Dust. Walking. Step. One. Time.

Now stairs.

I have no choice in any of this, I only have one small defiance. I take out the mockingjay pin on the underside of my shirt and pin it to the front so that they can all see who I am and what I represent. And I walk up those stairs trying to look as deadly and serious as possible so that they know I'm someone to be feared.

Which works great until I trip.

I try to grab onto something, anything to stop my fall but there's nothing but air. I know I'm about to fall off the stage completely when I feel someone grab my hand and steady me to my feet. And by the flash of her blonde hair, I know who she is even before I see her face.

Mags. My new mentor.

Since District 12 has no victors, obviously, and there is no one qualified to have the job here, other victors from other districts are recruited to mentor our tributes each year. They are usually vetted very carefully to make sure they are actually helping our district instead of their own which means a victor usually is stuck here for good when they do come here. In the end, Mags from District 4 has been the most reliable and has been District 12's mentor for pretty much as long as I can remember.

The truth is, though, that barely any of us know anything about her. She comes in a couple days before the Reaping and leaves with our tributes, not to be seen until the next year. I've never seen her smile or speak or do anything besides stand there on stage and look out beyond all of us to some unseen point.

But she's smiling at me now. "Are you alright?" she whispers, some sort of mixture between pity and kindness.

People say that she lured her victims into a false sense of security, what with her kindness and her concern, before killing them in their sleep. I can't say, her Games happened when I was five.

"Fine, thanks," I mutter back.

"You're shaking," she says and I realize that she's right. I am.

"I said I'm fine," I repeat, "but I appreciate your concern."

I shrug her off and walk to the front of the stage.

The female tribute is already there and must have been picked somewhere in between Yondrie kissing me and my almost falling off the stage. She gives me a dismissive glance.

Anna Wheelwright. I know her vaguely. Merchant. Decent family. Probably here because she had a tendency to sneer on Seam kids.

Is that why I'm here as well? Did merchant kids think I sneered on them?

"Our tributes," Georgia says, "Anna Wheelwright and Jay Tipper. May the odds be ever in your favor."

We shake hands as the crowd of people tries to avoid our eyes and our blame. I feel nothing except some sort of distant explosion, some crumbling from miles away of everything I have ever been and ever known.

* * *

><p>I'm the one who gets to sit in the chair because I suppose I'm the one who's going to die. Both Dad and Kit seem a million miles away. Yondrie can't seem to stop staring at me. Mom can't seem to let go of my hand. She can't seem to stop crying either.<p>

And I can't seem to stop shaking.

"I would've volunteered for you," Kit is saying. "If they hadn't put in that blasted rule for this Games."

"Well then I'm glad they changed it," I say, "because you were going only over my dead body."

I freeze once I realize that's exactly what I'm doing. Kit gives me a strange look like he's unsure whether he should start laughing or crying.

But I can't think about it. I can't think about any of this. I just need to speak it aloud now.

"When I'm in the arena," I say, the words so painful to think much less say, "and you see that I'm about to die, I want you to look away-"

"Jay," Yondrie says and I think she's going to start crying again too but her eyes only become red which is somehow even worse, "you're going to win. I know you are. That's why everyone voted for you. They knew it too."

I ignore her because it's the only way I can possibly get through this. "Promise me, all of you. I want you to look away. Please."

"No!" she says forcefully and she is crying now. "We were supposed to be married!"

Everyone looks up at that. But I can't explain now. There's no time, no time for anything. I can only explain to her. "And this is why we weren't."

"So…what? You're not even going to try? Do you really love me so little?"

That gets me angry. "Don't you understand? I. Can't. Don't ask me to explain why, don't ask me to explain anything!"

I am shaking so hard, everyone can hear the chair creaking. I lose control of my mind for just a moment as I wonder what it will be like, to track someone down, to kill them with my own hands.

No. No. No. I am never finding out. If it means dying to preserve my sanity, so be it.

Mom glares at Dad. "We should've run away, I tell you!"

They think I'm shaking because I'm scared. They don't understand. They shouldn't have to understand.

Then two Peacekeepers come in and there's Yondrie kissing me one final time, Kit embracing me fiercely, Mom clutching me like a favored possession. And there's Dad, as the rest are leaving, who whispers in my ear, "Do whatever you have to do to survive."

I look at him strangely. Does he know my secret? Has he managed to figure it out? "But I-"

"No!" And he says it with a fierceness that shuts me up instantly. "I don't care what your moral qualms are about this, you do what you have to do to get back here, to us and to Kit and your fiancé." He points at my pin. "You come home, mockingjay," he says, his voice thick. "You come home."

There's nothing I can say to that. So I don't.

* * *

><p>Mags doesn't say anything to us either, all the way to the train station and even now as we go on the train and it starts to pull away. It makes me wonder if I imagined my little trip up in its entirety.<p>

Unfortunately, no. One of the first things Mags does on the train is tune into a replay of all of the districts' Reapings.

It's as I feared. The Careers aren't so bad since who's voted for is pretty much who was going to volunteer anyways. Both 1 and 2 have impressive tributes and even the female for District 4 looks intimidating, but the boy they pick is young, obviously fourteen or less, with wide, scared blue eyes and freckles which make him look even younger. There is a commotion offscreen and the camera tilts to show their mayor with the exact same blue eyes.

"Danila?" he calls and it sounds so pitiful, so helpless that it makes me want to leave the room, even if that means I won't know who I'm up against.

Anna, on the other hand, starts to chuckle. "Wow, they must really hate their mayor to send his son to his death. Wonder what he did?"

I resist the urge to do anything that would get me into far more trouble than I'm already in.

But the other districts, the poorer ones, are clearly using this rule change to their advantage. Most vote for the strongest, biggest children. A girl in District 7, still holding an axe from her day of work. A boy from 8 who has an unsettling gaze. Even District 11, probably the only comparatively poor district to ours, picks tributes who are strong, who look like they could strangle me with their bare hands, much less with a sword or a spear.

And then the feed shifts to here. Anna may be small but she's still comparable to the other tributes. I, on the other hand, am not.

It becomes clear upon first glance that I have never been fed properly a day in my life. I am all strange angles and skin stretched over bone. A strong wind looks like it could pick me up and carry me for about half a mile. Even worse, as the other kids drain away and I am the last one standing, my face clearly shows fear and terror making me look younger, making me look like just another number to pick off.

But then something snaps, the fear and the innocence totally gone. I look fiercer, stronger, the angles becoming sharp and deadly, my thin body looking more like a badge of survival than of weakness.

The camera doesn't immediately pick up on Yondrie so when she cries out my name, it is focused on my face, the fear and weakness looking more like kindness and protection filtered through the strong as I look for her and as we kiss. It all would have worked to my advantage if I hadn't tripped up just a few moments later and then where I stand in front of everyone and it's clear that I am shaking. I look afraid and I look weak.

Anna scoffs. "Is your girlfriend really so desperate to get you sponsors?"

I don't reply because I know she's just trying to bait me. Instead I start the Reapings from the beginning, rewatching all of them for some clue, some hint as to what I am facing. Eventually, she just grows bored and leaves.

But no matter how many times I watch it, there is only one person who stands out among all the rest, who leaves all of us tributes as poor and incomparable substitutions.

I watch the District 3 coverage over and over. The way their voting is so much more advanced than ours, with percentages and possibilities. The boy, black-haired and uncommon lively golden eyes for his district, stands, smirking, smiling, almost laughing though it becomes clear early on that he is going to be chosen. Unlike all the rest of the tributes where it was obvious we were just acting, it seems as if he really finds this whole process amusing. And when the voting is done, he just saunters up and says, right into the microphone, "Please, all hold your applause until I win the Games." He really says that.

And I am captivated by him even though I know his very existence probably means my death.

"What's your name?" the escort of his district asks.

He laughs. "Promise me once you hear it, you won't forget it." And then he leans in real close like it's a secret. "Killian."

And he was right. I never forgot that name for as long as I lived.


	5. After: A Victory to Remember

The Victory Tour was nothing but hell.

Every district was the same story. Poor people, poor place, poor dead tributes faces and their families who seemed too shocked to be angry in their grief. And each time I was forced to stare at their pitiful, hardened eyes as I rattled off line after line about the greatness of the Capitol and the weakness of the districts.

_I used to be one of you!_ I always wanted to scream. _My ancestors fought to free your district! I was never meant to stand here._

But at least those districts had fight. Worse still were the ones with people who seemed uncaring whether they lived or died, whether their children had been killed by me or not.

Nightmares were abundant.

"How did you do it?" I asked Mags at one point. "This is worse than the Games ever were."

She shook her head. "I didn't really, I don't think any victor really does. I've seen others break down into tears, stand there unable to say a word. You're handling it rather well I would say."

"Oh," was all I could say in reply. I was an idiot if it had taken me this long to understand. Of course this Tour was made to denigrate rather than build, to remind everyone how helpless they really were against the Capitol, including the victors themselves.

I went through my morphling far quicker than I anticipated and by this point, it showed.

"Jay, I say your face is taking on a very peculiar color," Georgia said to me halfway through the Tour. "And your eyes are huge. Maybe we should take you to a doctor in the next district. It could be a fever of some sort."

"No," I replied quickly. "I'm fine."

But I saw Yondrie's face out of the corner of my eye and I knew she thought I was anything but fine.

Getting Yondrie on this trip was a piece of work in of itself. Georgia explained such things had never been done, could not ever be done, however much I pushed on the matter. But I saw my opening once she explained that every victor was supposed to develop a talent after the Games. I failed horribly at every endeavor she placed me in and when I quietly said that Yondrie knew how to garden, Georgia threw up her hands and agreed.

I wasn't lying, either. Yondrie was good with anything to do with plants, be it herbs or weeds or flowers. It was her idea to grow a different plant for each district as a way to remember their fallen, one of the few things I was actually pleased about on the trip.

Whenever I wasn't giving speeches or making appearances, I was with her gentle hands that taught me how to plant and trim and wake up from this world that chained me in hell.

And it was better than any morphling hit I had ever taken.

But then we came to District 3.

I knew it was going to be rough, even before we set a foot in there, I knew.

The previous district, District 4, had been rough. They had all hated me there, I saw it in their silence, not even a sound when I spoke and I understood why.

_I wasn't able to save him._ I had wanted to say to Danila's parents. _I'm so sorry._

But when I came to District 3, it was rough for a completely different reason.

They smiled at me when I went out into their square which was rough and torn unlike the technology that surrounded them on all sides, their forcible donation to the Capitol. They looked at me and smiled with pain on their faces and they clapped, every single one, as their mayor announced my name.

This was the first time anyone, much less a district had welcomed me with such open arms during the Tour. I was flustered and unsure of what to say next. Unsure of what they wanted from me and what I could do to make it happen.

"Uh, thank you," I began and I did what I always did to get through it – look straight ahead, don't ever look at the pictures of the tributes or their families – "for welcoming me to your district. I am honored to be here. In a show of comradeship and to remember the fallen tributes of this district, I would like to give you these dahlias."

I handed them to the mayor, like with all the districts, and then turned back to the crowd.

They were silent, not the silence of District 4, but an eager silence, a waiting silence. They were still smiling at me and I still had no idea what they wanted.

And when I tried to look away, that's when I caught a glimpse of Killian, his face with that perpetual smirk he seemed to have in life, arm's folded across his chest, knowing he was going to win. Beneath, his mother and two younger brothers who all stared at me in silence.

And who smiled.

"It's alright." Someone whispered behind me and I jerked around to see who it was. The mayor. Still holding those flowers in his hands. "Say what you must. We understand."

There was nothing to say to that. Nothing. These people, these kind, kind people who welcomed me like one of their own and expected nothing. I didn't deserve to be here. And I certainly didn't deserve Killian's kindness.

And then something inside me snapped. Whatever I was going to say, whatever I had planned, it was gone in an instant.

I turned back to the crowd. "I don't know you." I heard my voice reverberate through the square, expecting at any moment for someone to pull me away, to stop me, but still no one said a word. "Any of you, really. Not even your tributes. Not even Killian." I paused but only for a moment, I had to keep going, I had to do this. "And yet here you are, welcoming me with open arms. This district has been so kind to me, I'm sorry that I will not ever be able to repay it."

I took a deep breath. "Killian was my ally. I'm sure in a different world we would have even become friends. But more important than that, he saved my life, more than once. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't be standing here today. He should be here instead of me, he deserved it far more than I do."

Now that I'd caught a glimpse of his face, I couldn't stop looking at it. At that image that was him and yet not. I wanted so desperately to press my three middle fingers together in salute, the greatest thank you I knew how to make to Killian. But this wasn't District 12, these people wouldn't understand. My voice caught and I realized that there were tears in my eyes, tears that I couldn't get rid of.

"I'm sorry," I said, not even sure if it was for the tears or my speech or Killian's death. "I'm so sorry."

I turned away, wanting nothing more than to finally leave this place when I heard the first strains of a song.

My song.

_Are you, Are you_

_Coming to the tree_

_Where they strung up a man they say murdered three_

First one then two then all were singing it, even the mayor. I stopped where I was and turned around, walking slowly back. There they stood and they were all still smiling.

_Strange things did happen here_

No. No. They couldn't sing this. It was a death sentence. I heard the echo and realized I had said the words out loud.

_No stranger would it be_

"No!" I was practically screaming now, pleading, tears now falling freely down my face. "Stop! Not like this!"

_If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree_

And then everything exploded into chaos. It took me a moment to realize that this wasn't some random violence but a pre-planned rebellion. People in the crowds were pulling out guns and shooting at the Peacekeepers who shot right back, blood and violence and death. It was exciting. I was shaking.

I couldn't turn away. I couldn't speak. I was barely even there. I was back in the Games, fighting for my life and I hardly noticed when people clambered onto the stage and pulled me down into the fray.

One of them I could see was the mayor. The other had a strange familiarity and it took me a moment to place him as Killian's brother.

The crush of the crowd was immense now, all of us packed in so tightly that it paralyzed me in fear. The Peacekeepers were multiplying in numbers, surrounding us like wolves about to go in for the kill.

"Don't you understand?" I yelled to be heard over the roar of everyone else. "This isn't going to work, they're going to destroy you all!"

"We know," Killian's brother said and he took out a dagger from his pocket, small but deadly sharp. "This isn't a rebellion, it's the spark. And you are the sacrifice."

Instantly, everything fell into place. Their happiness at seeing me, the song, the carefully planned uprising.

They were going to kill me and make it look like the Peacekeepers did it.

They were going to make me a martyr for the next rebellion.

"No! I don't want this!" But I don't think they even heard me, the mayor was pushing me to the ground, Killian's brother was on top of me, the dagger poised in his hand and this was too much like the Games, too much like my nightmares.

"Your death won't be in vain," he said to me, so quiet, almost like a secret, like Killian's secrets. "We'll make sure of it." And then his knife went down.

In some twisted sense of irony, though, what saved me in the end was that they were so bent on killing me. The Peacekeepers opened fire and not a bullet touched me from so low on the ground.

I couldn't see anything except Killian's brother with his wretched knife but I could hear the screams. He jerked his head up, stopping the knife just inches before my face, and received a bullet in the shoulder as a result. He dropped to the ground, along with other people all around me, pinning me down. I could feel the knife slicing into my arm but I couldn't reach it with him overtop of me. I felt the stickiness of blood, whether him or me I did not know. He was moaning in pain, like many others around me, a sickening, horrible sound. But worse still was when the moans died off, leaving an immovable silence.

I felt like screaming. I wanted to scream. But pinned underneath everyone dead and gunned down, I could barely breathe, much less let out a single sound.

It might have been minutes or hours or days but eventually I could hear people moving somewhere above me and then light burst out as Peacekeepers dragged bodies away. I gasped with the rush of new air but I was too far gone to scream.

"There he is."

"Is he even alive?"

"He'd better be. Pull him out."

I was yanked out of the mess of bodies and set onto my feet. All around there were people, most dead, but some still breathing, some still crying out in agony, and then quickly being silenced. The few that weren't injured were being dragged away, most likely to never be seen again.

They kept asking me if I was alright. Nicely. The Peacekeepers. Over and over. But I couldn't speak. I tried but my voice wouldn't appear. So I just stood there and didn't stop shaking.

The others came for me. Ran over to me and hugged me tightly. Mags and Georgia and the prep team. They kept talking about my arm and how it needed medical attention and someone must have bandaged it because next I saw it was covered in gauze.

But I didn't speak, not until we got on that train. Because I knew he was watching. The President.

District 3 never recovered. It was beaten down into submission year after year and never did well in the Games from that point onwards, only surpassing District 12 in its number of victors.

I got into a lot of trouble for what happened.

I think I'm still paying the price.

* * *

><p>I went straight for my luggage once we were back on board the train. I knew where it was, the pocket where I kept my morphling.<p>

But there was nothing there.

No, that couldn't be right. I might not have had a lot left but I knew I had one or two still. One more to get me through this. One more.

I tore the luggage apart, seam to seam, and then the room, end to end.

But there was nothing there.

No. NO.

"Jay," someone said behind me, so softly I almost missed it.

I turned.

Yondrie. Holding the last vial of morphling.

"Yondrie," I said, my voice low and dangerous. "Give that to me now."

"Jay," she said, her eyes filling with tears, "what happened to you?"

I felt like laughing. "What happened to me? The Games fucking happened. District 3 happened. They were going to kill me!" I saw her eyes widen with that, but I pressed on. "For their cause. But I was a coward. Always have been, always will be."

"You're not a coward-" she began quietly but I cut her off.

"I am! You don't know how much I am, how much I hide from you every single day!" I was dizzy with pain, the world seemingly spinning around faster and faster. "I can't do this anymore! So don't you dare judge me." I walked towards her. "Give me the vial."

She clutched it all the more. "Jay. No."

"Give. It. To. Me." I was pulling at her arm, trying to pry the thing out of her hands. I knew she couldn't hold on forever and she didn't. At the last moment, she threw it to the opposite wall, shattering it into a million pieces.

"No!" I scrambled to the ground, my hands looking to salvage any amount, but it was no use. It was gone. I collapsed.

"Yondrie!" I yelled in desperation, in pain that I could never really express.

She didn't say anything for a moment. Then she knelt down to my level.

"Jay," she said, clasping my hands in hers. "Your hands are bleeding."

They were, from the broken glass. I leaned against the wall, putting my head in my hands, before realizing a moment later that I was smearing myself in blood and in fact probably was covered in blood from what happened earlier today.

How perfect.

"I'm sorry," I said finally, utterly broken. "For everything. I'm sorry you have to put up with me like this. You deserve so much better."

She didn't say anything to that, just leaned forward and tried to wipe some of the blood from my face.

"The fact that you were taking morphling is not what was bothering me," she said. "What bothered me was that you never told me. Ever. You don't think I didn't notice every time you took a hit and got strung out? Every time you looked at me but couldn't actually see me through the haze of drugs? I saw, Jay, I saw and it tore me apart more than you will ever know that you would rather go to your demons and your drugs than to talk to me!"

She was crying again and it made me feel even worse. "No, Yondrie, it was never like that. I didn't mean it like that."

She ignored me. "All I want, all I have ever wanted, is for you to tell me what you're thinking. Ever since we first met, you've been secretive and I know you are keeping things from me. Just tell me and I'll tell you everything and then we can finally stop being so alone."

And I couldn't help it. I did weep then, releasing everything from since the Reaping and even before. Every fearful moment, every bloodlust, everything that had gone through my mind, that had been eating me whole.

I was sure she would look at me different, that she would tell me how horrible and strange and awful I was. But she just looked at me with pity, not like the permanent kind people gave me back in 12, but the temporary kind that was sorry I had suffered, and then she hugged me tightly, so tightly I thought I wouldn't even be able to breathe but somehow I managed.

And we just sat there in silence for a very long time, even as the train began to move and night began to fall and it seemed that all the dark things I had been through finally began to fade away and in all my memories of all my days, I cannot say that I felt happier or more peaceful than at that very moment.

* * *

><p>It became cruel irony what followed.<p>

Instead of being the martyr for the rebellion, I became the martyr for the Capitol. I was plastered on every screen in every paper in every place. Poor Jay Tipper, in District 3 when he tried to give his thanks, the people mobbed him and almost killed him. Poor Jay Tipper, they horribly injured him in the process – as if I hadn't been injured even worse in the Games. Poor, poor Jay Tipper.

The only good that came out of any of it was that I was given a few days off the Tour to rest – probably just so that they could push the story that I had been more injured than I actually was – but I was still grateful nonetheless.

For District 1 and 2, security was ramped up to the highest level, all these Peacekeepers surrounding me at all times, even when I was just on the train which, though a nuisance, was perhaps for the best. I can't imagine that either was grateful to see me.

I had the sneaking suspicion, though, that this was just for the media too. Or, even more likely, to reassert the power of the Capitol after such a defiance.

I can never forget that.

Then came the Capitol and all the Peacekeepers became nonexistent because they were simply everywhere. It was so strange, after a lifetime of hunger, a Games of fear, and a Tour of the highest tension, to be placed into the finest clothes and dropped into parties where I was the center of everyone's attention. Where nothing happened except for eating and dancing and talking of the most mundane things. I felt like I was going insane. I probably was.

Then came the moment I had been fearing since the beginning. The Presidential Party. The moment when I would finally see what President Snow would do with me.

I clutched onto Yondrie until her arm must have gone numb. At least Yondrie could now be seen in public with me. Ever since the District 3 incident Mags had told reporters and other media sources that once Yondrie had heard what had happened she had travelled all the way from 12 to be with me and had since been seen at my side at all times.

"Jay," she said, looking at me sideways, "I'm pretty sure the President is not going to assassinate you at his own party."

"Stop mocking me, this isn't funny!"

"Mocking Jay? Who would ever do anything like that?"

I rolled my eyes. "Ha ha ha. You are hilarious."

"Jay," she said seriously. "Calm down. I'll be right beside you the whole time and I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

I smiled and gave her a quick kiss. "Me either."

If I am going to be honest, the party didn't really leave much of an impression on me. It was like all the rest. Music. Dancing. Ignorance. I spent most of it thanking people who told me I was the luckiest man in the world and trying to avoid being seen.

About halfway through the party is when President Snow made his entrance, along with his wife, smiling and waving at the crowds. I tried to disappear into the mess of people as much as possible but somehow Georgia found me and dragged towards them.

"Come on, dear, the President has specifically requested to meet you. You can imagine the honor!"

Oh, I could imagine. "Uh, I just, it's just, I'm just not feeling so well right now, maybe later or-"

"Jay!" she said, sharply. "Nobody denies the President. Get yourself under control and for heaven's sake be polite!"

They were standing at the foot of the stairs and smiled as we both came near. At the last moment, Yondrie, who must have been following close behind, slipped her arm around mine and squeezed it reassuringly.

"President Snow," Georgia said with as much overwrought reverence as she could, which happened to be quite a lot, "what an honor it is to be in your presence. Allow me to formally introduce the victor of the previous Hunger Games, Jay Tipper, and his wife, Yondrie."

We both smiled and nodded our heads toward him. "An honor to meet you, sir," I said.

He turned to look at me carefully and I got the creeping feeling that I was already dead in his mind, just another person gone who meant nothing. His eyes, a sharp clear blue, reminded me much of Killian's but without any of the warmth, only the gears clicking forward in logical reason.

"An honor to meet you too, the first victor ever from District 12."

I didn't know what to say to that so I just said, "Thank you, sir."

Georgia, perhaps realizing she was not needed anymore, promptly left. President Snow's wife, a woman with a kind smile who I could not reconcile being married to such a cold man, went up to Yondrie and whispered in her ear, "I say, why don't we let the men have some time alone?"

Yondrie looked at me sympathetically but she couldn't refuse. She squeezed my arm once more before melting into the crowd and leaving me alone with what I suspected was my worst enemy.

We stared out into the crowd in silence. I desperately wanted to get this over with but wasn't so brash as to speak out of turn or inadvertently reveal something that might be of some use to him so I waited.

"Tipper, Tipper, Tipper," he said slowly. "Why does that sound familiar?"

I didn't offer a reply.

"Oh," he said, as if it had suddenly come to him, "I seem to recall that that was the name of one of the rebels we executed during the Dark Days."

I didn't say anything to that at first. I didn't know what to say. But I knew silence meant guilt and I wasn't about to give in to that. I wasn't so foolish to think that denying completely my family had ever been part of the rebellion was such a good plan either.

"Is it?" I finally said, nonchalantly. "News to me. My father never talked about our family. And it just so happens that I don't talk to my father anymore either."

At least that was more or less the truth.

"Really?" he said and I knew it was false the moment it sounded. "And what makes you unable to talk to him?"

Even without starting the conversation, I had given away too much.

Stupid. _Stupid_.

"We have different views on everything," I replied. "I don't associate myself with people I know serve only to aggravate me."

He clucked his tongue. "That's a shame. I rather think people with different views can be quite interesting, if a touch misguided. I highly doubt that you and I share the same views, for example. And yet, here we are."

I shifted on my feet. There was no way for me to win. Why didn't he just kill me now and get it over with?

"Excuse me for my impertinence," I said, realizing I might as well say whatever I wanted, "but why does an important man such as yourself concern himself with me, a lowly boy from a lowly district?"

He started to laugh, long and loud, which was the last reaction I was expecting. "Oh Jay," he said, placing his arm around my neck as if we were old friends, "but you are important. Why else would we spend so much lavishing you with a house and money and nice clothes or guarding you after that rather unfortunate incident in District 3 where they sang that little song of yours."

He moved his hand to the nape of my neck and I froze, not able to move a muscle. I knew what he was doing. I knew what he could do. He could snap my neck with a stroke of his arm and I wouldn't even let out a scream much less be able to defend myself. For some awful reason it reminded me of holding that rabbit, trying and failing to kill it on the day of my first Reaping. Except this time I was the rabbit. And he wouldn't flinch to kill as I had. He knelt to my ear.

"If any other district had also decided to rebel," he whispered, so softly that even I could barely hear the words, "you would not be hear right now. The one reason, the only reason, you are still here is because you serve my purposes at the moment. Don't think you can fool me, I know you and your kind. If you think that you can start a rebellion in any capacity under my eye then you won't be the one to suffer," ever so slightly, he shifted my neck to where Yondrie and his wife sat beside a rose garden, laughing, "your wife will. And you are sorely mistaken if you think you can sway me to mercy by that point."

He straightened himself, removing his arm from my neck in the process. I looked at him. He was so young, about ten years older than me give or take, but even so he seemed to behave as if he had ruled this world for an eternity and would continue to do so for as long as time existed.

"Don't tell me where I heard this," he said, normally, naturally, "but rumors say that it is your wife who grows the plants, not you. Such strange notions some people have." He laughed, its tone ringing oddly or maybe it was my ears roaring with blood that distorted its sound. "But do tell that lovely wife of yours that if she ever gets the fancy, she can come work in my garden. I dearly adore roses." He plucked the white rose out from his lapel and held it out. "For you," he said. I knew I had to take it.

But I allowed myself one defiance, one small rebellion though I was terrified, no, perhaps because I was terrified. I stared at him, stared and hated and drove him through with my eyes.

"Thank you," I said in the nicest voice I could muster, "for the insight and the rose."

I found Yondrie still by that wretched rose garden when I went to get her.

"Is something the matter?" she asked me as soon as Snow's wife left.

"No," and I tried to smile when I said it. I held out the rose. "From President Snow. For you."

"Oh," she said. "How lovely."

* * *

><p>The next Hunger Games came far too soon for my liking.<p>

Or maybe it was because that's when it finally hit me. When I clambered onto that stage, right next to Mags who was staying this one final year to show me the ropes in being a mentor, it hit me, really hit me that my life was now forever entwined in the one moment I would most like to forget. That all I ever did now was live and breathe and help to serve the Hunger Games.

And that thought terrified me, even more than my own bloodlust or the Games themselves.

It was also quite strange to see the eighteen-year row, all those kids I had once gone to school with, who could conceivably be reaped into this Games. It was a horrifying thought to think of Kit being reaped and me having to coach him, even if he was too terrified to be friends with me anymore. At least Yondrie was a year older than me and finally not eligible for reaping anymore.

In the end, the two tributes were no one I really knew, a boy about sixteen and a girl about fourteen, both from the Seam. That didn't make it any less horrifying.

Afterwards, as I walked off the stage, I swore, just for a moment, I saw a flash of green eyes that fled as soon as I looked for them.

Training our tributes was certainly not a pleasant experience. While I could teach them trapping or survival skills or even how to use weapons, I was absolutely clueless in everything else concerning the Games and I often looked to Mags to answer their questions to the point where they simply cut out the middleman and asked her instead of going to me.

Even when I did know what I was doing, I still felt out of place. My tributes, looking at me with desperate eyes, asking me, begging me for advice. Showing me the snare I had taught them and smiling widely like it could protect them in the Games. They behaved as if I was some ancient sage instead of the eighteen-year-old that could have been reaped if I wasn't last year.

The other tributes didn't see me that way. Whenever I walked into the room they always talked about me. And I could always hear because they were none too quiet about it.

_Look over there, that's Jay Tipper. You know, the one who won last year completely out of nowhere, the one almost killed in District 3. He's already mentoring, can you believe it? It's because they don't have any victors in District 12 so now they have to send children to do it instead._

But I never said anything in response.

And that was my biggest problem. I could teach tributes and learn for the most part what Mags had to teach me but no matter what I did, I never felt up to speaking to sponsors, even the ones who had sponsored me during my Games.

"You're going to have to learn, Jay," she said to me. "If you ever want to bring a victor home."

Not that that even mattered that year. Those poor kids, so afraid, hardly trained, were both killed only seconds into the Cornucopia Bloodbath. That tore me apart more than anything.

"Get used to it," Mags said. "Every year is like this. Learn to detach yourself."

That just made me angry. "What? I'm not supposed to have feelings now? Does the Capitol take those away from me too? Did you send me into the Games not caring if I lived or died?"

She softened at that. "Of course not. I wanted you to live and I did whatever I had to do to make that happen."

I put my head in my hands. I knew she was right. I knew that I couldn't become so attached when every year this was going to happen, over and over and over and over. But I had so little humanity to grasp onto. I needed this.

I also knew I was wasting time when she was leaving me so very soon. There was no point in her coming back to 12 after all. I tried to think of all the things I needed to say to her, apologies and thanks and good wishes for the future all rolled into one.

But by the time I had raised my head and thought out a response, she was already gone.

And I was alone.


	6. Before: Learning to Survive

Extravagance.

This is what hits me more than anything. Everything surrounding us is simply the finest, even by Capitol standards.

Apparently it's not always like this. While tributes have always been treated with a level of respect and fascination and been provided for, this year is different since it's a "Quarter Quell".

I'm starting to get really sick of that term.

Nothing but the best food. Nothing but the best quarters. Nothing but the best instructors from the best Games.

"You're special," everyone says to us. "You were chosen to be here."

As if I could ever forget.

But the one thing I have trouble getting used to more than anything else is all the people surrounding us whenever we step outside our quarters. There are fans and reporters who poke and prod and stare at us every waking moment. It gives me the strangest feeling that we are cattle.

The 1st Quarter Quell. It's going to be a Games no one is ever going to forget. Or at least, that's what the Capitol keeps saying.

I'm too afraid they might be right.

* * *

><p>"So if you just pull it up like then the person will be trapped."<p>

"Uh-huh." My fingers are working the snare even if my mind isn't.

Out of all of the tributes in the training center, I am the only one always alone. Most of the others are either with their district partner or are already forming alliances with the other tributes.

But I don't want to. I don't want to know any of their faces or names when they're all going to die.

Not even the boy from District 4 called Danila who is the youngest of us all.

But that's not what's making my mind wander right now. What is are those throwing knives over there, the ones that shimmer with the light and end with the sharpest points. I have seen a few tributes go over there and try their hand at it but none have accuracy or skill. None were meant to hold them.

None except me.

So far, I have spent all of my time in training learning different snare ties or survival skills – not that I really need to learn how to survive, I am from District 12 after all. I haven't gone near any weapons. I keep telling myself that I can survive on these snares, that maybe I can just set up traps in the arena and if other tributes get caught in them and die, well, it isn't my problem. But I also know that's bullshit and that if I want to survive, I need to learn how to use those knives.

Even if a knife in my hand would destroy me.

My thoughts are interrupted by lunch being served. Most of the kids rush immediately to it, gorging themselves on the food they'd never had in life. I hang back. I may not have that many ways to look tough but I can in this. Plus I know from experience that eating too much after having so little will just come right back up.

And I'm right.

But my little act of strength doesn't impress the Careers.

"Hey 12," says District 1's tribute; a boy I've heard the others call Flicker. "Be careful around that food. Wouldn't want you to trip up and ruin it for the rest of us."

The other Careers snicker. All, that is, except Killian who doesn't do anything at all. Come to think of it, he doesn't really do anything ever, so unlike the enthusiastic boy he was when he was reaped. He barely speaks and when he does it's in two word sentences. I've rarely seen him work with any of the instructors. The only thing he ever does seem to do is stare at the world like he's trying to piece it all together. Like he's doing to me right now.

I don't respond to their remark knowing antagonizing them will get me nowhere. But that doesn't mean it should be ignored. I decide not to eat at all, opting to walk towards the throwing knives, to the instructor who has had nothing to do all this morning.

"Teach me how to throw knives," I say to her and with everyone eating lunch, they can all see and hear me.

She lazily looks me up and down. I expect her to say some petty remark about my size and strength but she just jerks her head over to the targets and I follow.

She explains about grip and grab and gravity, doing a demonstration for me and by extension, for the entire group of tributes.

"That's great," I say, "but, um, I'm left-handed. Would I still use the same stance but opposite?"

"Yes," she says. "But then your job becomes more difficult. A right-handed person can just throw straight ahead and reach the other person's heart. However, you will have to throw diagonally to achieve the same goal. As well, it should be noted that throwing knives, especially ones as high quality as these usually have a natural disposition to the left since it is assumed the person throwing it will be right-handed and will naturally throw more to the right."

"That's fine," I say. "I'm ready to try it now."

I line myself up and the room falls into sputters of conversation. I know that most of them are watching me. I know I have one shot. I take into account all she has said and then I throw, the moment feeling wonderful and sickening as I hear it hit the target with a satisfying thud.

It takes me a moment to realize I have hit the center.

Everything is deadly silent now as I line up for my next throw. But whether it's because everyone's attention is on me now or the mechanisms within the knife forcing me to fail with my left-handedness or even the other throw just being beginner's luck, this time I fail. I don't even hit the target. I'm not even close to hitting the target.

I hear laughs from the Careers and then chatter fill the room as everyone ignores me and my obvious failure.

I throw again. And again. And again.

Nothing.

I leave the station, vowing never to return. But someone catches my eye as I do so.

Killian. Still watching me.

* * *

><p>It was a bad idea to ever even think of learning how to throw knives. They invade my every thought now, my every deed and action. Nothing feels so complete as when I have them in my hands and as the days pass, I find myself going back again and again. Just to hold them. Just to throw them one more time.<p>

Mags seems pleased or maybe it's just because I finally have a skill to show the Gamemakers. Even so, it's still mixed with that perpetual pity and kindness she seems to have for me no matter what I do.

The day of evaluations comes far too quickly for my liking as does the call for all the districts before Anna and I. When my turn comes, I stand, sigh, and try to look as intimidating as I can.

"Hey," Anna says behind me and I turn around expecting her to say something snide and mean to throw me off my game. Instead, she just smiles. "Show them how we do it in 12."

"Yeah," I say, flashing my own smile. "Let's."

But the Gamemakers aren't interested in 12. They hardly look at me the whole time. And the nervousness and guilt that I've been feeling for the past couple of days boils over. I hit the center only once, most just barely reach the target, and a few don't even do that. They let me leave after just six throws.

* * *

><p>"A 5?" I say incredulously. I expected a bad score but I didn't expect one as low as that.<p>

Anna's face appears next with her number of 7.

I groan. This was my one chance to gain sponsors, to show I was worth someone's attention. We were forgettable in the Tributes' Parade, I was forgettable in training, and now I'm utterly forgettable in the evaluations.

"They didn't give you low scores because you preformed badly," Mags says and we both look up from the screen. "They gave you bad scores because you're from District 12. They gave you a worse score, Jay, because you're left-handed. Almost all the weapons in the Cornucopia are going to have a lean towards those who are right-handed. And no one left-handed has ever won the Games."

"Great," I say. It seems that all the odds are against me.

But then the thought comes just as quickly: I am a mockingjay who has no right to exist in the first place. I seem to thrive when the odds are against me. Maybe I can win. Maybe I really can. I try to think it even though there is no hope in my heart.

Maybe.

* * *

><p>Interviews.<p>

This is something completely different, something totally unexpected. There have never been interviews before but I guess because this is a "Quarter Quell" there needs to be.

In years past, tributes were discussed and thought of, but never actually talked to – I suppose as a way for Capitol citizens to keep a barrier between their fantasy and the actual reality of the Games – at least until these tributes became victors and were in no danger of dying. But now interviews are going to be done with every tribute prior to the Games and by the looks of how excited the Capitol citizens are, they may make this permanent.

It's one last chance for me. One last chance to gain sponsors and some sort of edge.

This is worse than anything that has happened to me so far and quite possibly all that will. Now I have to laugh and talk and pretend to be friendly while I sit in this suit that could have fed my family for the past ten years and forget the fact that I may very well die tomorrow.

The one thing I'm allowed to have that I'm grateful for is my mockingjay pin, stuck to the front of my collar. At least my district back home can know who I am if no one else.

The interviewer in question is Caesar Flickerman, a man, no, a boy practically no older than ourselves with wide eyes and a jumpy sort of manner. Rumours circulate that he is actually from the districts and was saved from certain death when President Laurent realized the boy could be useful. But those are just rumours and who knows what is true in this Capitol.

Regardless, the boy is agitated, fliting his eyes from the audience back to his tributes as we come up one by one and it is certain by the way he looks so normal and does not talk in the same accent as those of the Capitol that he is at least new here.

He goes in order, female then male, talking to every tribute. For the first time, they open up about their lives and their districts for the Capitol to see. To a point, of course. Everything they say they are obviously playing for the Games.

District 1, a girl named Ruby who plays an innocent, one who practically volunteered to save others from being selected as tribute. The boy, Flicker, who is charming as he and this boy interviewer both joke on the similarities of their names. And then District 2's female, Philomena, and male, Shard, who revel in their strength and ferocity.

But the one who steals the show, the one who will always steal the show, is Killian. Dressed in an electrical suit which changes colours depending on what he says and all of the Capitol laughing and cheering on his every word, he is definitely unforgettable.

"So, Killain," says Caesar who at least seems to have gotten a rhythm going, "I've been hearing a lot about you lately. It seems that you are all anyone's talking about when it comes to the Games. Would you like to share?"

"Well, I am a tribute, so yes, my name is going to come up in conjunction with the Games," he says and people in the audience laugh. "Or did you want me to be more specific, like that District 3 did just win last year's Games or that I am the only tribute to have gotten an 11?"

"Whatever you like," the boy replies. "Though I suppose the last is most impressive."

"It can be. But what does that matter if at the end of the day I am still dead?"

"Very true, very true. But I don't think that will be a problem for you. Which is why your district chose you as a tribute, am I correct?"

"Of course," he says with a smile and his suit flashing silver to match. He is perhaps the only person in the world who manages not to sound arrogant with such a statement.

"But even so it must be hard for you, leaving your district. Is there anyone there who will be rooting for your inevitable win?"

It is then and only then that Killian hesitates, takes a moment to reply while his suit fizzles out for a moment, his energy gone. But then he is back again, smiling and laughing.

"I think a better question would be: Who isn't rooting for me back in District 3?"

Caesar throws back his head and laughs but on his young frame, it doesn't look quite believable. "Right you are. I wish you all the best."

The interviews following are certainly not as impressive and they begin to blur together in my mind, though I do note a shy and quiet District 4 Danila. It gives me a pang of guilt though too. Tomorrow, some of these kids will be dead and no one will really remember or care. They seem just like me; lost, apprehensive.

But at least they don't dream of killing people.

Then it is my turn, the very last tribute. I hear my name announced and I walk onto the stage. I planned on smiling and looking amiable but when I'm finally up there, everything fades except for the knowledge that this will be the first time since leaving 12 that my family or Yondrie or Kit will get to see me.

Somehow I'm standing beside Flickerman and all cameras are on me.

"So Jay," Caesar begins, "why do you think you were chosen as tribute for District 12?"

"I…" I say and then freeze. I don't know what to say. I should though. Every other tribute has been asked this. Why didn't I work out an answer?

"I don't know, really."

Yeah, that's sure to win me sponsors. Let's form a line right now.

"That's okay, I understand," he says. "You just have so many talents, it's hard to figure out which ones blew your district away, am I correct?"

I nod my head, thankful at least that he cares enough about his own skin to make me look good.

"And am I correct in assuming this pin you are wearing is from your district?"

"It was my grandfather's." I touch the pin, my one piece of strength.

"Aha, a family heirloom. What does it represent exactly?"

I wince inwardly. I didn't imagine I'd be great but I certainly didn't imagine it would go this badly. "It…it's kind of like a family crest, I guess."

No response from the audience but at least I didn't commit treason. I decide to snap my mouth shut for the remainder of this interview in the hopes that will curb the damage I incur.

"So tell me about these people," he says, "who are watching you at home, rooting for you."

When I don't reply he prods, "Your parents, I assume?"

I nod my head and try not to look straight at the cameras.

"And perhaps a girlfriend? There was certainly a girl who caught your eye during the Reaping."

I nod my head and then before I know what I'm doing, I'm saying, "Well, not girlfriend anymore I suppose. We are to be married."

Gasps go up from the crowd and I realize I have finally done something right.

"Married?" He seems incredulous.

"Yes," I ramble on. I'm not supposed to be talking, I don't want them to know all these things about me, but once I've mentioned Yondrie I can't seem to stop. "She wanted to get marry sooner. But I wouldn't let her. Because of the Games."

More gasps from the crowd and sighs and never have I felt more awkward. But maybe this at least means sponsors.

"Well then," he says finally, "I am sure you will do all that is in your power to get back to her."

I nod my head. "I will."

A lie. It always has been a lie. I will try but I can't do everything. I can't.

The timer dings. I walk offstage amidst applause. The interviews are finished.

Now the Games begin.

* * *

><p>I am unable to sleep.<p>

Instead, I sit at the dinner table eating as the sun rises for the Games. I can't help myself. My half-dreams are filled with blood and I'm tired of pretending I'm not hungry. I eat everything in sight. It's probably going to be the last time I even get to eat anyways.

"Can't sleep?"

Startled, I look up to see Mags at the doorway. I nod my head.

She sits down across from me, picking up one of the chocolate covered strawberries. "Well, can't say I blame you if you're giving it up to eat. Say what you want about the Capitol, they make simply the best food there is."

I have nothing to say to this so we sit in silence for a few moments, me trying to avoid her gaze that always seems to know everything about me.

"Are you frightened?"

I look up and try to look casual. "Yeah."

She shakes her head. "No. You're not."

I stop eating and watch her nervously.

She waits a few moments before answering. "I've seen you, you know. In the training room. Watching the previous Games. When you almost fell off the stage back in 12. I've seen that look on tributes' faces before. Mostly, though, I've seen it on victors' faces."

"And what exactly is that?"

"Excitement. Bloodlust."

The first time anyone has ever said it out loud. I hang my head. "So now you know. My worst secret."

"This is wonderful news," she says, practically smiling.

That just makes me angry. "How can you say that? Just because in your Games you…"

I trail off and almost blush at the humiliation of what I almost accused her of.

She sighs. "Jay, I know what you must have heard. And I won't deny it. But you have to understand that what I did in the Games was not who I was. I killed, but I did it to survive. Of course I feel guilt and of course I regret it but if I hadn't, someone else would have won, someone who would have probably cared a lot less that they had killed people."

I shake my head. "This changes nothing. I'm not letting my district, my family, see that side of me. I won't kill people to win."

"Then think about your district. District 12 has never had a victor. Think about the hope it would give them if they did, not to mention the free shipments of food they would receive as well."

"Great, I'll be inspiring the kids of my district to die in the Games. That makes me feel so much better."

"Jay," she says and she says it with such intensity that I stop resisting. "No matter what you do, you will destroy something you love. Either you go home to your family by killing people or you die and leave the people you love devastated. It's your choice."

I feel stunned, unable to respond. Her words, though she probably didn't mean for it to be so, remind me so much of what my father told me, of the Hanging Tree. My rebel ancestors had to make difficult decisions like this during the rebellion. My great-grandfather decided to let himself be captured and that must have devastated his family. His son chose a different path, decided to play the Capitol's Game and survive. But which one was right and which one was wrong?

No. This is completely different from what I'm going through right now.

…is it?

This must play on my face because next she says, and gentler this time, "I believe you can win, Jay. And I haven't thought that about a District 12 tribute ever. But you have to let yourself go. It's the only way."

I put my head in my hands and let out a groan of frustration, for everything I've been forced and will be forced to do. But when I open my eyes, I've made my decision.

"Fine," I say. "I'll do what you want. It's what my father wants and it's probably what Yondrie wants too. I'll do everything in my power to survive. Everything."

I feel apprehension and guilt but I shove it all aside. I'm going to do this. I'm going to win.

And this time, it's not a lie.

Mags just smiles. "You will."


	7. After: Remnants of the Rebels

Three years passed.

I suppose things got better – my mentoring skills certainly did – but everything still felt the same. I could still feel the President breathing down my neck every step of the way. And I still hadn't brought home a victor.

I had gotten close that year, though. The girl had actually managed to make it out of the Cornucopia Bloodbath, a first since my Games, and she seemed to actually have a chance…that is, until she was tracked and killed by the Careers on the third day.

And so I returned home once the Games had ended, empty-handed, and trying to avoid the parents that surely hated me. Yondrie, on the other hand, seemed in unusually high spirits.

"Oh, Jay, you're home!" she said, practically dancing into my arms. "I missed you so much."

I was too tired to think much of it. "I missed you too," I said before kissing her.

She moved into the kitchen. "Are you hungry, love?"

I wasn't particularly and quite honestly just wanted to sleep and forget all about the past several weeks but I caught a glimpse of what she was cooking and it looked pretty complicated so I agreed. Before long I was talking about the Games once more.

"Those blasted Gamemakers! It's like they want us to fail. If that fog hadn't lifted right then, that girl might still be alive. It aggravates me to no end!"

"Uh huh," she said.

"Don't get me started on the sponsors either. None of them talk to me. None of them! They talk to Ivy from District 7 who hasn't been sober one day in her life but they don't talk to me. Because 12 is just too strange, I guess."

"How disappointing."

"And then there's these so-called "stylists" they now thrust upon us. Why, it was only a few years ago that you just needed a prep team when you went into the Games and now you need a stylist? The one they force me to work with for 12 is just unbelievable, some stuck up creature who believes she's better than me just because she was born in the Capitol. It's her fault our tributes are dying. She never tells me what her strategy or angle is, just because she doesn't like me, so we send out mixed messages. These kids die, Yondrie. They die because of a few fools in the Capitol who refuse to work with me. "

"That's lovely, Jay."

"Yondrie," I said, now completely out of patience, "did you even hear a word I said?"

"Of course I did. You were talking about the Capitol."

"Yondrie!" I said, now becoming angry. "I was talking about the atrocity of those Games! I was talking about how we watch our children die here in 12 because of the ignorance of the Capitol!"

She looked up from her plate, her eyes holding a strange depth. "You're right, I'm sorry. Those poor children, they never get a chance to live." And her face looked mournful, like she was about to cry.

I was getting genuinely concerned. "Yondrie, are you feeling alright?"

She waved her hand. "Of course, of course. But I'm sorry about ignoring you."

"I don't care about you ignoring me, I care about you. You seem a little…different."

"I am a little different," she said and she smiled once more. "Jay, I have something to tell you."

I leaned back, trying to look casual even though by this point I was terrified. "By all means, enlighten me."

"I'm pregnant," she whispered.

I almost fell off the chair at that. "You're…pregnant?" I repeated dumbly as if the concept was absolutely foreign to me.

She laughed. "While I was beginning to suspect that was the case before you left, it wasn't until I went to the doctor that it was confirmed." She clasped my hands. "We're going to have a child, isn't that exciting?"

I swallowed hard. I foolishly hadn't thought about this development, until now. Of course I had heard Yondrie express her want for children and even I myself had wanted children at one point. But everything was different now with President Snow watching my every move. Children, my children, were going to be just another bargaining chip for him; something to contort me however he wished.

And that was even without the problem of my being a victor. I had seen the victors from the earliest Games, married and having children and inevitably having one or two of these children reaped into the Games because it makes such a delicious story. How was I ever going to survive if this unborn one was to be reaped into the Games and I had to train them?

"Aren't you pleased, Jay?" Yondrie said, frowning as she saw my face.

And I knew, even though she wanted me to tell her everything, that now was not the moment to talk about such things. Instead I lifted her up and twirled her around the room.

"Am I pleased? As if I could be anything else!"

And she giggled and we kissed and I forgot all about the problems this child would bring.

But only for a little while.

* * *

><p>In those weeks and months that followed I swore I never saw Yondrie happier. She was always smiling or laughing or singing no matter what I found her at. And by the way she so carefully walked and protected this unborn one in her arms, I knew she was going to make a wonderful mother.<p>

I, on the other hand, seemed to be doing worse by the day. My mind couldn't stop worrying no matter what I did. I began to have more frequent nightmares, imagining a child with my eyes and Yondrie's hair who either blended into my previous established nightmares or started completely new ones where they pleaded with me to save them while I watched helplessly from the side. At least none of these nightmares had woken up Yondrie yet. It seemed I had finally learned how to keep from screaming during my dreams and while she knew I still had them, she probably thought they had subsided greatly.

If only.

I tried not to show it. I let her be excited and pick out all of the things we were going to need for the baby, spending practically half my earnings on it. I let her knit enough clothes for three babies of any gender. I had even begrudgingly let my parents visit to fawn over her in place of her dead ones, though I avoided eye contact with my father which negated any sort of conversation he may have wanted to have with me while he was there.

And then the days slowed near the end of winter, like a drop of water about to fall.

The doctor said the baby would come any day by that point. He was probably right, I had never seen Yondrie so wobbly on her feet nor had she complained so often about her back before, and she was not a complainer in the first place.

But I knew it was coming that morning when she suddenly reached out from the sofa she was sitting on and squeezed my hand with impossible strength.

"Yondrie…"

Of course she tried to refute it. "I'm fine, Jay. Really it's just a little…" She let out a yelp of pain.

I jumped to my feet. "We're getting you in bed right now and I'm getting the doctor. I know when a baby's coming."

Apparently being in pain only made her snarkier. "My victor. What would I do without you?"

* * *

><p>Waiting was unbearable.<p>

Every time Yondrie let out a yell I wanted to go up there, do whatever had to be done to let this end as soon as possible. But Georgia only shook her head at me.

"It simply isn't done, Jay, dear," she said. "Back in the Capitol, the only man allowed in when a woman is giving birth is the doctor himself."

I rolled my eyes. This was absurd. If I had never been in those damned Games to begin with I'd be the one delivering Yondrie's baby right now, like my father had with me and with every other wizened child they had that never could survive such roughness as the Seam. It's a miracle even I did.

But of course, the other reason I had to be down here instead of up there was because of the cameras. Georgia and the rest of the prep team had been here for almost a month now, awaiting when Yondrie would give birth – though thankfully housed in a different home in the Victors' Village than ours. Apparently things got very boring in the Capitol once the Victor's Tour was over and the next Games hadn't begun.

"Simply everyone wants to know about District 12's first and only victor now becoming a father," Georgia said in glee. "It's so exciting!"

I sighed. Was there nothing left in my life that was my own anymore?

And then I suddenly heard Yondrie give a final cry before I heard another, smaller voice join hers.

A child.

My child!

I jumped to my feet and everyone else quickly did the same.

"Please," I begged them. "You can film whatever you want afterwards but please, please, let me see my child first alone."

I could see the reluctance on their faces and for a moment I thought for sure that they wouldn't agree. But then Georgia smiled.

"Oh, get on with you," she said. "Your family's waiting."

I thanked her and tumbled up the stairs so fast that I almost fell twice.

"Whoa, slow down there," the doctor said, smiling. "They're not going anywhere."

"Yondrie," I said as I caught a glimpse of her. "Are you alright? I'm so sorry I wasn't here, I-"

And I stopped because that's when I saw the child she held, still crying from birth.

"It's a girl," Yondrie said, somehow still looking bright and smiling after hours of labor. "Would you like to hold her?"

I wanted to say that I couldn't, couldn't hold something so fragile and perfect after all the evil I had done in this world but then she was in my arms and I didn't ever want to stop holding her. She looked so much like Yondrie with her little peaked nose and wide mouth but her tufts of dark hair looked exactly like mine.

I frowned at that.

And as soon as my arms reached around her she stopped crying, opening her eyes and looking at me and I couldn't stop thinking how beautiful she was. I knew then that even if President Snow used her against me, if she was somehow reaped into the Games, that I wouldn't trade now or any of the future months and years I was going to have with her. She was mine and Yondrie's and no one was going to snatch her from our hands.

After just a few minutes of rocking her in my arms, her eyes fell heavy and she slept. I leaned in and kissed Yondrie's forehead.

"So," I whispered, "what were you thinking of naming her?"

"If it's alright with you," she said slowly, "I'd like to name her after my favorite flower, a dahlia."

I frowned, but only at the memory of District 3, at what I had been unable to salvage.

"You going to be alright with that, Jay?"

"Yes," I said, smiling. "Dahlia. I think that's the perfect name for her. Little Dahlia," I whispered down to her sleeping face, "better get ready because there's a whole country waiting to meet you."

* * *

><p>Dahlia lived up to her name. She was as bright and colorful as the flower she was born to be. Even as a baby and a toddler she had a stubborn will and mind of her own, refusing every direction we gave her. And unlike Yondrie and I, she seemed to thrive on the attention given to her by the Capitol, always waving and smiling to the cameras and answering every question with ease. The Capitol adored her equally; they loved cute things almost as much as they loved blood.<p>

For whatever reason, out of all the people in her life, she took a shine to me. She was always extending her chubby little hands whenever I came into view or speaking my name in her singsong voice when I returned to the house or toddling after me when I had to leave her.

I never knew how to deal with Dahlia. On the one hand, I couldn't have her following me everywhere, especially during the Reapings and afterwards. That was hard to do, when I kissed her forehead and she would say, "Daddy, where are you going?" and "Why can't I come?" and "When are you coming back?" I didn't dare tell her about the Games and what they meant and how I was involved, although I knew that she would inevitably learn about it at school. I wanted to keep her innocence as long as possible.

But on the other hand, she was a stubborn child and usually got her way. So if it was something not related to the Games I usually had her come along with me, holding her hand all the way and carrying her when she fell sleepy. And though it's awful to say, it probably helped my reputation in around the district too. People were less frightened of me what with a small child that always smiled and waved at them tagging close behind me.

The Everdeens certainly thought so. They were distantly related to Yondrie and had pretty much taken over the Hob since she had left. They had been one of the few people to actually speak to me after returning from the Games.

"That child is winning the entire town over for you," Leigh had said to me during Dahlia's first time at the Hob.

I smiled at Dahlia who sat on the counter staring at us studiously. "Yes. She's my little miracle."

Leigh smiled too but there was pain in it. Her and her husband, Jaff, had been married for seven years now and still didn't have any children. It was in debate if they ever would.

Dahlia didn't say anything during our entire conversation but she continued to watch me carefully and about halfway home she said, "Daddy, you're important, aren't you?"

I didn't know what exactly she had heard and decided to play it safe. "What makes you say that, Dahls?"

"Because…" she said, thinking for a moment, "you have to go away sometimes and no one else ever does that. And…and you stand in front of everybody, every year."

I winced. Even if Dahlia didn't understand, she still did have to be there for the Reaping, like everyone else.

"And," she continued, "what that woman said, about the town." She twisted her fingers in her skirt. "That they don't really like you. Because you're important. Because they're jealous. Right?"

I sighed. How was I supposed to answer this? "Dahlia," I began, "what I do is very complicated. Yes, you could say that I am important. But a lot of people around here don't like what I do and they like even less how I got it and they're not jealous, they're just upset. Do you understand?"

She shook her head.

"Of course you don't. Look, you don't need to worry about the town and other people and whether I'm important, okay? It doesn't really matter."

"Okay, Daddy," and she smiled and held my hand. Like she trusted me. Like I could be trusted.

Not everyone who liked Dahlia I welcomed with open arms, though. During the next Reaping, as the stage was being set up and the children were being filed in, I lost sight of Dahlia and for one horrible moment I panicked in the thought she might be trampled or lost. But then I found her, talking to someone who had taken her fancy, someone with a flash of green eyes.

I grabbed her arm and pulled her behind me. "Don't you talk to her!" I hissed to my father, my first words to him in almost six years.

His eyes fell. He had grown old when I hadn't been looking, his hair now streaking silver and extra lines patterning his face. "Jay," he began, his voice growing old too.

"No," I said. "You don't talk to her and you don't talk to me, now get out of my sight!"

He did as I said. I turned to Dahlia.

"Don't talk to that man ever again, do you hear me? Never, ever again!"

I could see that she was about to protest, as she was wont to do, but I shook my head and said in a voice that she wouldn't dare cross, a voice I had used in the arena, "No!"

She didn't fight but she gave me a strange look as if trying to figure out why I was behaving like this.

She didn't ever talk to him again.

A few months later, Yondrie started to become quiet.

"I'm pregnant," she told me, happiness washing over her and I had accepted that this was the way things were going to be.

"I couldn't be happier," I said.

And it was the truth.

* * *

><p>District 4 won that year, a first in quite a few years. And so as the Victor's Tour rolled around and the victor, and Mags, came to our district, I invited them over for dinner.<p>

The girl was a quiet one, not in a silent killer sort of way but more in a genuinely shy sort of way. Like me, she seemed to hide from attention as possible. Mags was ever friendly though.

"Is this your daughter?" she asked me. Dahlia stared at her unblinkingly.

I nodded my head. "Dahlia, say hello to Mags. She's a friend."

"Hello," Dahlia said carefully, thinking. "Are you important like my dad is?"

I sighed. "Dahlia…"

But Mags just laughed. "Your father is of incalculable important to the Capitol. As for me, well, let's just say I made your father who he is today."

"Well," I said in jest, "I think you ask far too many questions, Dahlia!" I reached to tickle her and she squealed in delight.

"You didn't mention there was another one on the way," she said as she caught sight of Yondrie.

"I want it to be a boy," Dahlia cut in.

"Oh, really," I said, amused. For some reason I had thought she would want another sister to keep her company. "And why is that?"

"Because girls are boring."

"Now Dahlia," I said, even more amused. "I happen to recall that you are in fact a girl as is, in fact, everyone here except for me and you don't hear me complaining."

"Well everyone here is alright but other girls are boring. I know. All they want to do is play dolls and talk. Boys are way more interesting."

I couldn't stop laughing for a good ten minutes and whenever I saw Dahlia's young what-I'm-perfectly-serious-face, I was sent over the edge again.

After dinner, when Yondrie and the girl victor were clearing the dishes, Mags beckoned me to my study. And of course, Dahlia followed.

"Jay," Mags said, "I need to talk to you about something serious."

"Sure," I said. "Just one second. Dahlia, I told you once. Mags and I are going to talk. Alone."

"But I promise I won't say anything," she said. "I just want to listen. Please, please, please?"

"Dahlia, no!"

But she refused to budge and I was forced to deposit her outside and lock the door. I didn't give in, not when she pounded her little fists nor when she cried. Finally, she gave up and I heard her feet pattering away.

"That child is going to be the death of me," I said. "She's too smart for her own good."

"She's a lot like you, you know," Mags commented.

"No," I said, feeling my anger strike at the comment. "Don't you say that. Don't you ever say that ever again. She is nothing, _nothing_ like me. And I am going to ensure that she never does become like me."

Mags gave me a side glance. "There's nothing wrong with being you. In fact, this is wonderful news. Before, she had absolutely no chance of survival."

I turned away from her, my mind shuddering at the memory, at similar words Mags had spoken to me once upon a time.

"He's going to take her one day," she whispered, barely audible. "They always take the firstborns."

"I know," I said, the first time ever admitting it out loud. "And there's nothing I can do."

"This is what I wanted to talk to you about," she said and I turned back to face her. "We've suffered enough. It's time for us to do something."

I already knew where this was going. "Mags…"

"We need to rebel."

I threw my hands up in the air. "Oh, well, now you've really lost it."

"We could do it, Jay."

"No, we could not."

"But Jay…"

"No."

"We'd need a symbol, someone to be our mouthpiece."

"Mags, NO."

"It has to be you."

"Damn you," I said. "I'm not doing it. Ever. Nothing you can say can make me change my mind."

"Why, Jay?" she said, raising her voice louder than I had ever heard before. "Do you want to stay under the tyranny of the Capitol? Do want the Games to go on? Do you want your child to be reaped?"

"Shh!" I hissed before lowering my voice. "Don't you say that out loud again. I don't want Dahlia hearing."

"Jay…" she said, trying a different tact. "What's going on? Why are you acting so afraid?"

"Well, for one, the kind of rebellion I want for our world is not the one they'd get with me as the figurehead."

"Oh, and why is that?"

"You saw what they did to me in 3. It would be like that but worse. When people see me, all they think of is unspeakable violence. Their jaws would be dripping blood in anticipation of it, with me in ecstasy. Dahlia would grow up in a world filled with violence and death. And the other child, the unborn one, it would associate me with nothing but that. It would be a madhouse, worse than the Capitol ever was."

"It's just like the arena, Jay. You think I enjoyed what I had to do in my Games? No, but I did it anyways to survive."

"Yeah, well, that's where you and I differ," I said, "because I enjoyed every single fucking second of it."

"You have a soul about it. You have a conscience. And if worse comes to worst, you can always lie. Say that the Capitol forced you to take on that persona, it wasn't of your own doing."

"Oh, so now I'm lying," I yelled. "Well, what does that remind me of?"

"Jay, you're throwing this way out of proportion."

"I'm throwing nothing out of proportion! You're the one who wants to force me back into the Games, to twist me into something I'm not for the hundredth time!"

"Well then go ahead and be selfish," she replied back with equal strength. "You just make this all about you and leave your family and the rest of Panem to suffer!"

"Don't you play that card! I'm saving my family by doing nothing. It's the only way I can."

"Why, Jay? What is it that you makes so afraid of rebellion?!"

And then I broke. "Because Snow's going to hurt them if I rebel!"

Silence.

Then, "Why didn't you tell me he threatened you, Jay?"

I sighed. "I don't know. I was terrified of what he'd do if he knew I was telling people. I wasn't sure you'd believe me. I didn't even know if I believed myself. But I know I wouldn't ever let Yondrie be in the hands of that man, not even to free us from this world. I would kill her myself before that happened."

"It's a smaller evil to erase a larger one," Mags said quietly. "It's the Hanging Tree."

There was nothing I could say to that. I knew she was right. Maybe if we did strike now, our world could change, could finally be free. Wasn't I a rebel like my blood? Isn't this what I had dreamed of since my father had told me that story?

"I appreciate your strength, Mags," I said finally, "but my answer is no. And that is not ever going to change."

She didn't ask again. She left with her victor and no one said anything about rebellion ever again.

Except for one.

"I heard what you said," Yondrie confided in me once Dahlia was trundled off to bed and a candle lit between us was all we needed to light the whole house.

I couldn't deny it. "And how much was that?"

"Enough."

We were both silent and I thought she might say something, complain about how I had been keeping secrets from her once more. But she said instead, "I wondered why you were upset about having children. I saw it in your eyes even though you never spoke it. I think I understand now."

I squeezed her hand. "I regret nothing. Dahlia is the best thing that ever happened to me besides you. My family will always come before any other obligation or duty."

And she just nodded her head and said, "Me too," before we kissed in the darkness.

* * *

><p>Yondrie's due date coincided with the 31st Hunger Games which at least meant that there would be too much going on for any cameras to come this way. But it also meant my leaving when Yondrie could go into labor at any moment.<p>

"Promise me you'll take things easy," I said. "And if anything happens that's out of the ordinary, you'll tell the doctor immediately."

"Jay, stop worrying. I'm going to be fine. You'll be back before anything drastic happens."

But I didn't stop worrying. And after the usual failure and disappointment of the Games, I came home to find Dahlia jump into my arms with fear on her face.

"Something's very wrong with Mommy," was all she would say.

I found Yondrie lying in bed, moaning in pain and too delirious to even recognize me.

I ran for the doctor as fast as I could.

"It's not good, Jay," he said. "I don't think I can save both your wife and the child."

"You save Yondrie," I said fiercely. "I don't care what you have to do, you save her!"

"No, no, no!" she said, sitting up. "This child has to live, it's going to do great things!"

"Yondrie," I said, trying to get her to lie down, "you have to stop moving before you injure yourself."

But she wouldn't stop no matter what I did.

"Save the child," she begged me. "Save it instead!"

I only looked at the doctor.

"You save Yondrie. No one else."

* * *

><p>I was glad when he finally took the bowl of blood away, stripping the room of any signs that the child had ever existed. Yondrie lay exhausted, hair sticking to her forehead. I went to comfort her.<p>

"No," she snarled, jerking from my grasp. "Don't you touch me. Not tonight, Jay. Not tonight."

I was hurt but I could hardly blame her. I left her alone as she wanted.

I checked in on Dahlia to see if she was alright after all that had happened. Asleep, she looked like an angel instead of the rambunctious troublemaker she usually was. At the door creaking, she popped her eyes opened and peered out at me into the dark.

"The baby?" she said hopefully.

I shook my head. "I'm sorry, Dahlia. But the baby…the baby's gone."

"Why?"

I sighed. "It just wasn't meant to be, I suppose."

She blinked at me. "Did it not want to be a part of our family?"

I sat on the bed, pulling her into my lap. "No, Dahls, of course not. It just…it's hard to explain."

"Is Mommy going to be alright?"

"Yes, eventually. But right now she has to rest a lot and that means we'll be doing the work around the house. Alright?"

Any other time she would have protested but this was not just any other time. She nodded her head.

"Okay," I said, pulling her off my lap and tucking her into the covers. "It's time for you to go to sleep now. Everything will be better in the morning." I kissed her forehead and went to the door.

"Daddy," she said as my hand reached the knob, "was it a boy?"

I turned around. She couldn't know everything, never would. But she deserved to have at least this.

"Yes, Dahlia," I said as I closed the door. "It was a boy."


	8. Before: A Worthy Opponent Part 1

Going through the tube is the worst part. I have never liked being in tight spaces – most likely because I trap animals to survive – and after being on a hovercraft where they stunned us with an electrical current that stopped even our breathing in order to place our trackers, the idea doesn't appeal to me at all.

But I have to do it. I have to do it or else they'll stun me again. I close my eyes and chew on the inside of my cheek until I taste blood and feel the arena open up around me.

Everything else has been spectacular so far for the Quarter Quell so it is no surprise that the arena is too. We are surrounded on all sides by a vast forest. One side – the one with the boys in coats – is frozen into an eternal winter. The other – the one with the girls in shorts and tank tops – is a tropical jungle. All the tributes are in order, from 1 to 12, which means I'm in the innermost circle where just a few feet away from me Anna stands on the tropical side and the numbers climb back up to 1.

"Without further ado, let the 25th Annual Hunger Games, the 1st Quarter Quell, begin!"

The numbers start counting down. 60 seconds. It is both an eternity and barely a breath in time.

I crane my head around, desperately trying to get a better view, better information for how this will play out.

A river is circling just behind us, half-frozen, half-evaporating water. And finally in front of us, on a hill, is a metaphorical Cornucopia sliced into three levels, one on top of the other. The bottom containing supplies, the middle containing food and water, and the top containing every sort of weapon imaginable. Three levels, each one harder to get to than the last.

This is going to be so much fun.

I realize I'm shaking and after so long of trying to push it back down, I now embrace it. I let it flow through me, all the bloodlust and fascination and excitement, and all at once, I stop shaking though my mind remains sharp and ready to go.

I notice a lot of the other male tributes shaking, not because of excitement but because of how cold it is over on our side. A wind comes against us and we all brace ourselves, a boy with a 9 stamped on the upper arm of his jacket looks ready to fall but at the last moment rights himself.

"Hey, 12," Flicker calls to me even though we are on opposite ends, "try not to repeat what happened at the Reaping."

I hear a few of the others chuckle at this but I barely even hear. The cold isn't a deterrent to me, it's an awakening.

Whether I like it or not, this is what I was born to do.

The gong sounds.

I push off from the pedestal turning onto the tropical side. I know that no one is going to be able to climb up the ice.

I am right for out of the corner of my eye I see them slip and fall. The rest of us on the warm side dig in our heels and push towards the Cornucopia.

The bottom yawns out towards me. I don't focus on the other tributes or anything else. I focus on a backpack smack in the center that is big yet still easy enough for me to pull onto my shoulders. Hopefully it has something of use though I don't have time to check right now. I clamber up the ladder to the second floor and kick it out from underneath.

Food. Water. But not as much as I thought at first glance. In fact, very little. There's a few canisters of water, which I take two of, and some dried food but nothing sustaining.

I think I must be missing something so I keep searching, looking for more, but there's nothing. No. They can't possibly expect all of us to survive on just this. My mind is so focused on that that I don't see the male tribute with dark hair and eyes until it's too late.

He attacks – I suppose he wants what little food I've taken – tackling me to the ground. I am winded but the sudden adrenaline only makes me react faster. I try to push against his weight, scratching and tearing and when I catch sight of his hand, I bite. He howls in pain and I spring up. It's all instinct when I take off my backpack and slam it against his head. His eyes roll and his body sways and after a moment his tips off the edge of the platform, landing with a crack against the cement bottom.

Everyone stops for a moment, even those now running into the surrounding forest, to stare at the boy who has fallen and snapped his neck and up at the boy who has killed the first tribute of the Games – the boy who nobody remembers, the boy from the lowliest of districts, that left-handed disadvantaged boy.

Me.

And all at once I start to shake again. I just killed someone and found it easy. I killed someone and I can never take it back.

I'm a murderer.

But I can't grieve or even contemplate any of this because this is the Games and we're just getting started. I feel an inrush of air and turn to see the girl from District 1 slash something in my direction. I duck just in time but she clips a part of my ear and blood begins to gush down the side of my face, obscuring my vision.

A sickle. She is holding a sickle. She must have already gone to the top level and come back down. And she clearly thinks me enough of a threat now to do away with sooner than later. She grunts and swings for another attack.

She may have a weapon but I know that I have to be slightly stronger than her, if not by much. I reach up and grab the handle in mid-stride, forcing it to a stop. She twists and turns, the blade slipping into my palm and slicing my skin, she so desperately trying to get away from me but only ending up tighter in my grasp. Not wanting to go the way of the last, she pushes all her weight against me, throwing me back a fair distance. I'm about to go toppling over the edge when I manage to turn against one of the four beams supporting the platforms, the shock booming around the Cornucopia and sending shivers up my spine as another blast of cold comes in from the frozen side of the arena.

And looking up I find my salvation.

I reach up, grabbing one of the long, dagger-like icicles hanging down and twisting it into my bloodied hands until it snaps free. Without another thought, I plunge it into her stomach. She gives a little shriek before slumping to the ground, either unconscious or dead. I shatter the icicle into a million pieces before grabbing the sickle and throwing it as far as my arm can stretch.

I jump onto the ladder to the top floor, kicking it out just as before.

The weapon selection is a little better than the food and water, but not by much. Most of the weapons are simply a variation of a knife.

The Gamemakers definitely want to see blood in this Games. It's just too bad that I agree with them.

A dagger is the first thing I take followed by wire to make snares and some sort of device that looks like a bomb which could be useful in a later confrontation.

But what I'm really looking for, what I want and need, doesn't seem to exist. There are no throwing knifes. None. Was I really so bad in evaluations that they didn't even give me that?

Well, two can play at that Game. When I'm sure they're not anywhere in the pile, I start throwing the remaining weapons off the edge of the platform. Several tributes escaping into the forest grab them as the Cornucopia almost completely empties.

Almost.

"Hold it right there."

I don't, unsheathing my dagger and holding it up from my crouched position to these new intruders.

I am right to be wary. The speaker is Flicker, looking scratched and torn from the battle, and probably seeking revenge after my killing of his district partner, and who holds a spear towards me. Behind him, Shard and Philomena draw nearer followed by Killian and his district partner who have just reached the top of the stairs.

For the first time, I reply back.

"You're the one who should be careful. You saw what I did to your girl and I'll just as easily do it to you."

"You bastard!" he yells. "I should slit you from throat to stomach right now."

"You should but you won't because you know that with my dying breath I'll do the exact same to you." I shove my blade towards their faces. "To all of you."

They look at me with hatred but even so they take a step back at my remark, their eyes filling with fear. All, that is, except Killian. His eyes fill too with some sort of emotion I cannot decipher but it is certainly not fear.

"Stop," Killian says holding his hands between Flicker and I. "This is getting us nowhere. No matter what happens both sides will die and that is not what we want now is it?"

I'm sure it's what the Capitol wants but they're not here. Nobody's here but us.

Flicker still keeps his spear on me but his eyes waver to Killian. "No, we need to kill him right now or else him and the rest of those pathetic districts think they can do whatever they want."

Killian seems unfazed by his remark. "We underestimated you, didn't we?" he says to me, sounding almost saddened, like he knows what this means for him. "Everyone underestimated you and now they're going to pay the price." And only then do I realize the look that captures his eyes.

Respect. He sees me as a worthy opponent.

"Yeah, well," I reply, trying to sound casual because this is a show for the Careers and Capitol alone, "that's what most people think when you're from District 12. But at least my district knew what it was doing when it voted me here."

He nods his head and smiles. "Well it seems to me, 12, that you have two choices right now. The first is to join us in our alliance."

I hear gasps from the other Careers which mirror my own inner astonishment. District 12 has never been a part of the Careers. This would be unprecedented in the Games.

"I refuse to let him into our alliance," says Flicker, now dropping his spear completely, before adding with pain, "He _killed_ Ruby."

A spark of my humanity comes back, reminding me again that I am a murderer but I snuff it out. I can't think about anything right now except life and death. For my parents. For Yondrie. For District 12.

"I know," says Killian, "but the Games are not about justice. They are about winning and I think this boy will help very much in that regard."

I think it over. Joining the Careers would at least mean that I won't be alone or worry over food and supplies. On the other hand, by the looks these Careers are giving me – with the exception of Killian – I highly doubt I would be safe and I would probably be killed at their earliest convenience. Besides, if I have to play this Game, I would rather do so on my own.

I lower the dagger as a sign of goodwill. "And my other option?"

"Your second option is to clear out of here within 20 seconds where we promise not to kill or harm you in any way whatsoever during that time."

"This is so stupid," Philomena says. "We should just kill him now!"

I look up at Killian. "I want 30 seconds."

"Fine."

"And I want a guarantee that you won't kill me."

"And how exactly can we do that?"

"I want you to drop your weapons over the sides."

More gasps from the other Careers and Shard muttering as he fingers his bow, "This is absurd."

"Do it!" I say, raising my dagger once more. "Or we dish it out right now and find out who can survive losing more blood."

Killian never takes his eyes off of me, those eyes like gears that click forward one step ahead of everyone else. "Do as he says," he calls to the Careers.

One by one they drop their weapons over the side, near enough so that they can retrieve them at the bottom of the Cornucopia. Lastly Killian takes off some sort of strange mixture of spare parts salvaged from the Cornucopia which he has clearly already started to disassemble and rearrange into something new, and throws it to the ground.

"30 seconds starts now, 12," he says.

I take off without a second glance.

"That's Jay Tipper to you," I yell back. "Remember it."

I fly back through the floors so quickly I barely see anything. Yet I still see enough. Ravaged supplies. Blood. Bodies. And then the bottom floor where the first to die, and the first I killed, still lies unseeing towards the sky.

Almost as if to cement this, the first of the cannons, his cannon, fires.

One.

With each passing second more of my humanity comes back and more of the realization of what I have done. I killed and didn't even think or feel remorse. Didn't even know their names.

But even now, I cannot think too much on it. I still have to survive.

Two.

The arena stretches out before me, an endless game of hide-and-seek. I choose the frozen side, reminding me so much of the wintry forest beyond District 12.

Three.

The adrenaline begins to taper off. I feel the throb of my hand still bleeding out, and from my ear now biting into the wind. I feel my knees weaken with fear and feet tire from so much crouching and climbing and running.

But more than all that, more than the fighting and hurting and even killing, comes the deep ache for home. I certainly didn't feel it in the Capitol, perhaps I was too numb still to feel it. But here, running towards a forest almost familiar but not quite, in a place where I am trapped, just like the tube but only bigger, until a group of men pretending to play as gods decide to let me go free, the ache comes fierce. Never have I felt more trapped.

Four.

A spark again. This time I let it grow and with it comes the memory of singing the Hanging Tree as the mockingjays wove it back to me for the very first time. It takes me a moment to realize that I'm singing it under my breath right now, whispering it out with each step that I take.

_Are you, Are you_

_Coming to the tree_

_Where I told you to run so we'd both be free_

_Strange things did happen here_

_No stranger would it be_

_If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree_

Only now do I finally, finally understand its meaning. It's about the rebellion and mockingjays and everything else people said it was but it's also about something far darker.

It's about sacrifice.

It's about giving up everything you are.

It's about trusting that what you're doing is right when you're not even sure yourself.

It's about being free at any cost.

Five.

I reach the river, this side frozen over. I think I can just slide across but once my feet land on the ice they slip from under me. For one terrible moment I think my time is up and the others will come and kill me but then I take out my dagger and jam it into the ice, stopping my tumble. I carefully walk the rest of the way until I reach the forest.

I run.

No more cannons. Five tributes dead. "Only five," they'll say in the Capitol. "How utterly boring."

I don't stop until my legs give out from under me. Until night has not only fallen, but turned into a dark mass surrounding me on all sides. Until the faces of the fallen tributes appear on the sky.

The girl from District 1. Ruby was her name. Followed by the boy from District 5, a boy with dark hair and eyes. The first one dead and the first of my kills. Then both tributes from District 6 before finishing on the female tribute from District 11.

I collapse to the ground, my body heaving in great breaths. My mind only going over and over the boy from District 5 who looks no older than me. Who _did_ look no older than me.

And then, with my bloodlust gone and the Hanging Tree still whistling through my head, I begin to weep.

* * *

><p>I find it hard to sleep.<p>

During the countdown and the fighting and the running I don't think I quite realized the horrible nature of this arena. True, one side is warm and the other side is cold but this cold is way worse than I'm used to. A cold that swallows almost everything whole.

After having a bite to eat and cleaning my wounds out with water as best I can, I open my backpack to see what I got.

It's decent. Matches. Rope. A medical kit. Bandages. A few dishes to cook food in. And a sleeping bag. Good.

But even the sleeping bag doesn't keep out the cold. Trying to cover myself with leaves and branches is also useless. Using the matches is obviously out of the question at this time of night unless I want the others to find me.

After several hours I decide that if I'm not going to sleep I might as well put some distance between myself and the others. Maybe then I won't have to kill anymore. It's a foolish thought but at least it keeps me sane.

I walk and walk and walk and everything looks exactly the same as before.

I can't stop thinking.

Today I became a murderer.

Maybe I did really die at the hands of the Careers at the Cornucopia and this is my punishment for killing, my hell, walking and thinking and never getting warm.

What does District 12 think of me now? My parents? Yondrie? Kit? How can I ever look them in the eyes again now?

That is, if I ever get out of here.

Several times my eyes droop shut even as I'm walking and I start tumbling into rocks and trees. But I can't stop, I have to keep walking.

It becomes my mantra.

I have to keep walking.

I have to keep walking.

I have to keep

Walking have to

I have to

I have

I

I collapse to the ground. I'm supposed to get up. I have to get up. It's too cold to stay here.

Wait, no it's not. In fact, it feels warm. Really warm.

Sleep.

This is a bad sign, I know it. It means something really bad. Someone told me this once. Warned me about it. Someone.

Someone…

Sleep…

…


	9. Before: A Worthy Opponent Part 2

"Jay."

I claw out of darkness, my eyes fluttering to the sound.

"Jay Tipper."

I roll over, groaning at this sudden noise. I feel a heavy weight on my chest as if I need to remember something important, but I push it away. Any moment now Yondrie will be here and I'll ask her about it then.

"I've said it once and I'll say it again, we need to kill 12 before it's too late."

I bolt up instantly, my mind returning to the situation at present. My hand is already at the handle of my dagger, ready for battle.

"Kill him? Are you crazy? The boy's gone mental from the Games. He actually looked like he was having fun back at the Cornucopia. I'd hate to see what he'd do to us."

I look around for the source of this voice which sounds a lot Shard but all I see are trees. I stand but I still see nothing.

"The poor boy's just trying to survive."

And then I stop because I definitely know which voice that is.

Killian.

But his voice isn't coming from the ground. In fact, it's coming from up in the trees.

"On the contrary, I admire him for the way he perseveres. If he gets pleasure out of it that's his own business to attend to. Though I dare say he has more of a conscience than any of you."

I look up to see a bird speaking with Killian's voice. But it is no bird. From the markings on its breast I know it's a jabberjay.

Now it all makes sense. The Gamemakers must have put jabberjays in the arena in order to confuse the tributes and bring in some more drama.

"Of course," I say, dropping back to the ground.

The bird cocks his head at me. "Of course," it repeats back, in an exact replica and tone of my voice.

An idea. One that my rebel ancestors would be proud of.

"Hmm," I say loudly, as if thinking deeply, "an alliance you say? Well, I'm sure it would have its advantages, especially in taking out the Careers. We would have to plan it carefully, though. And bring people from other districts into it. But it could work. Alright, you've got a deal," I can't help it, I smile to myself, "District 7."

The bird stares at me a moment longer as if still memorizing my words, and then without a sound it flies away.

Let the Careers figure that one out.

I decide it still might be a good idea to get up and start the day. Dawn, or at least a simulated dawn, is rising and I decide to check my wounds as they begin scab and itch, a sign that they are healing at least. I pull out a dried apple and eat, just for energy and only a little. I can survive on less.

Strangely enough, the arena being warm last night was not a trick of my mind – guess I'd be dead if it was. The arena really is warm, not hot, but a perfect temperature. I have no idea why. The snow is still here, as well as every other indicator that it should be cold.

I suppose I don't really care about the why. Warm is better than cold.

But that's about all the good news I have for the day. Unfortunately I now have no idea where I am and no idea how to get back to the Cornucopia if I need to. I try to make a map and look around for any familiar landmarks but that also seems to be useless.

Wherever I am, though, I can tell that there are others nearby. I see the rustling in the trees and people muttering in whispers. I mostly manage to stay out of their way but once or twice I do accidentally stumble on people fighting it out but I always manage to melt back into the trees.

Cannons go off throughout the day. A lot. And horribly, my first thought is always that the Gamemakers will now most likely leave me alone.

About midday I decide to rest, eat some more of my food, and re-evaluate where I am. All are pretty much failures. I'm constantly tired, I am totally lost, and I am going through my food far quicker than I ever anticipated.

That's when they attack.

I'm not sure what or who, but something solid smashes straight into the back of my head, the impact blacking me out momentarily and sending me reeling. I fall to the ground, desperately trying to regain any sort of balance.

My instincts kick in once more. I pull out my dagger and stab one of my attackers – there're two now I see – resulting in a yelp of pain from one who quickly falls to the ground.

I jump to my feet, trying to stave off the dizziness long enough to catch a better glimpse. The boy is clearly the one I stabbed since he now lies on the ground clutching his leg. The girl, holding a thick branch as a weapon – and what presumably hit me on the head – goes to attack me again.

But I have a better weapon, even without my throwing knifes. Within moments, I have tackled her and her throat slit, the cannon confirming my actions.

I stand and walk towards the boy who is already trying to scramble away from me, the thick honey light catching on his district number.

4. District 4.

And on the rest of the coat, in spidery silk, pictures of his district's exports, fish and pearls and seaweed. I catch a glimpse of the girl just as she's taken away by a hovercraft to confirm that she has a similar pattern on her shirt too.

Mags' district.

Danila. The blue-eyed boy with freckles. The one I felt sorry for all throughout the Reapings and training and interviews.

And now I'm killing him.

I drop my dagger to the ground.

"Go," I say.

He looks at me uncertainly.

"Get out of here before I change my mind!"

Even with his injured leg he gets to his feet as quickly as he can, the blood staining the snow as he limps away.

After a moment, I sheath my dagger and look up to the sky.

"I'm sorry, Mags," I say to the faceless void. "I didn't know."

It is only when I start to walk that I notice that my head hasn't stopped spinning, my brain feeling as if it is trying to squeeze out of my skull.

I sit down, trying to regain my balance but everything seems out of whack. Only slowly, very slowly, do I regain my strength and balance. My luck that no one attacks me now or else I'd be gone in an instant.

Or perhaps the Gamemakers like what they see.

I manage to start walking again only as night falls and the fallen tributes are being flashed onto the sky. First the girl from District 4, the one that I killed. Then the girl from District 8 followed by the boy from District 9 and the girl from District 10.

4 dead today. 9 dead overall. 15 left to go. All people I don't know. All people I will never know.

And another person to add to my kill list.

I wish Yondrie was here. Not that she was fighting as a tribute, of course, but I wish I could hear her voice one more time, even if she does hate me now. I feel like I'm already forgetting what she sounds like. Everything from District 12 seems so much like a wonderful dream that is slowly fading away in the morning light.

I decide to continue looking for the Cornucopia since so much of my time was wasted earlier. Well that and the arena has decided to go back to freezing cold now. Why can't the Gamemakers decide to freeze the arena during the day? Or is this some ploy to make us all sleep-deprived?

Probably.

My head still throbs with every step I take but at least I can think again and at least I am still alive. But I only get about half a mile. There I stop because I distinctly hear the soft sounds of someone crying.

It pierces me. After everything I've done, all the pain I've caused and people I've killed, maybe now I have the chance to do something right. I pull out my dagger in case this person is being attacked, following the sound until I reach a small clearing.

The boy looks up, his blues eyes locking with mine.

The boy from District 4.

Danila.

He breaks my gaze, looking at my dagger before returning to his blood soaked leg. He stops crying and tilts his head upwards, exposing his bare neck.

"Go on then," he says. "Do it. Get it over with already. I'm going to die anyways."

I should. That's what the calculated bloodlust inside me says. He is lamed and weak and nothing but a burden. But instead I sheath my dagger and pull off my backpack, unzipping it and pulling out its contents.

"I have bandages."

He looks at me warily. "Yeah. Because you're just going to give them to me. As I recall, you were the one who gave me this wound and killed my district partner."

I hang my head. "I know. I'm sorry. But to be fair, you gave me a pretty good bump that left me reeling for the rest of the day. Why did you try to attack me anyways?"

"We were just hungry!" he explodes in frustration. "We weren't even going to kill you, just wanted some of your food. We hadn't had anything to eat since the start of the Games and we saw you had food so…"

"There's a thing called asking, you know."

"Yeah, well, from what we've seen and heard, you don't exactly seem to be the asking type."

I sigh. "I'm sorry, alright? I'm really sorry."

"Yeah, and that's what they said to me right before they voted me as the male tribute for District 4."

"Well, let me show you then. Let me look at your leg."

He shakes his head quickly. I cross my arms.

"Are you afraid of me?"

He hesitates, his eyes searching me carefully. "Everyone here is afraid of you."

It's probably true but that doesn't mean it hurts.

"Look, I promise I won't hurt you. But if you want to get out of this arena please let me look at your leg."

He considers it for a long moment before finally complying, rolling his pant leg to just above the wound and I kneel to get a better look.

I take in a sharp breath. The wound isn't big but it's deep with blood oozing out. As long as we can stop the bleeding, though, the smooth edges should eventually close up.

"Wait here," I say, standing.

"Not like I can get up and run," he mutters and I can't help but smile.

I find the herbs that Yondrie uses for wounds like these nearby. I also find that making a poultice is rather easy though the boy still looks at me warily.

"Would you calm down? If I was going to kill you there'd be a lot easier ways than giving you poisoned plants."

"How does a boy from 12 know about plants?"

"It's our district's specialty, maybe even more than coal."

I finish with the poultice and start carefully winding it around his leg.

"Would you mind if you told me your name?" I ask.

"Why? What do you care?"

He's pretty mouthy for a small injured one.

"Well if we're going to be allies, I'd rather call you something other than your district number."

"Who says we're going to be allies?"

"I do. Because after bandaging your leg, you owe me. Plus I have the food you so desperately need."

I finish tying the bandage and take out some of the dried beef, throwing it to him. He looks at me for only a second before tearing into the food like some frenzied animal. I sit down beside him.

"Danila Seen," he says after swallowing.

"Jay Tipper," I say in reply. And then I shift uneasily because I don't know how to go about this. "You know, I saw your Reaping. I'm sorry about what happened."

He shrugs his shoulders. "My father lets the Peacekeepers do what they want, including whipping people they think harbor "rebellious thoughts" but haven't even done anything. I suppose I had it coming."

"How old are you?" I ask.

"Thirteen," he says and my anger inflames at the thought.

"That's not right," I say. "What your father does is not your fault."

He eyes me with disdain. "In case you haven't noticed, none of this is right. But here we are. I saw your Reaping. You seemed like a nice kid, until the Cornucopia Bloodbath."

"I'm only doing what I have to do to survive." I hope all of District 12 hears that. They most likely will. Unlike the Capitol where the Games are filmed mostly as a sporting event, the districts, along with the main feed, usually have two cameras always showing their two tributes, I suppose to further hammer in how helpless we are against the Capitol. Except for in extraordinary circumstances, it doesn't waver from that person and only goes to black once that person is dead. If they're awake right now, they have to have heard, because it is a truth in a way and I need them to know that. "Can I ask you something else, Danila?"

"Sure."

"Why weren't you with the rest of the Careers? 4 almost always joins the Careers, why not this time?"

"Well they certainly didn't want me, I'm too little and don't have that much to offer. Alyss, that was my district partner, she knew this and decided to stay with me."

I feel another pang of guilt now, learning this poor girl's name and knowing that she could've joined the Careers and instead decided to protect Danila.

The only thing I can do now is protect him myself.

"And besides, why would they want kids from 4 when they can have Killian, the savior of the world!" He waves his hands out when he says this, mimicking a Capitol citizen to an exact point although they'll never know they're being mocked.

I can't help but laugh. "You're a good kid, Danila." And he just smiles and it's so good just to have some humanity before everything goes back to death again. "Come on, it's freezing cold and it doesn't look like it's going to let up anytime soon. Let's start a fire. I'll kill anyone who dares to come near."

* * *

><p>We get two days.<p>

The first day is spent trying to figure out where we are. I explain how lost I am to Danila who just looks at me like I'm a complete idiot.

"Uh, ever heard of climbing a tree?"

"Oh," I say, feeling like that complete idiot. "Yeah, that makes sense. But you sure a tree can take my weight?"

"Well, you certainly don't weigh as much as the Careers. C'mon."

It turns out that a tree can, in fact, take my weight. We climb all the way until we can see the arena from all sides, like the Gamemakers and the Capitol and districts must see us.

It turns out that all this time I've only been a few miles from the Cornucopia which is currently being held by the Careers, tiny figures who stand guard and sleep. But most of the people it seems are over on the other side of the arena, the tropical side, what with the trees rustling movement which is so unlike yesterday when people were tramping all over this side.

Wait a second…

"Danila," I say so excited, I can barely get the words out, "I think I know why the temperature keeps changing. It's based on how many people are in a certain part of the arena. Wherever there are the most tributes, be it in the jungle or forest or perhaps even the Cornucopia, the temperature levels off there. But then there are all those people in close quarters, resulting in a higher chance of people fighting."

Clever.

Danila nods his head. "I think you're right, Jay!"

We climb down and I explain the mishap with the jabberjays and ask him if he's seen anything strange. He shakes his head.

We are freer with our time with this realization most people aren't near us. We talk about our districts and our friends and family. The Panem anthem plays. The girl from 5 is dead.

Another day of freedom.

"Well, that's the last of it," I say to Danila as we finish off the food the next morning.

He looks at me in terror. "The last? What happened to all of it? Did we eat it all already? Are we going to starve?"

His face looks so pitiful that it's almost hilarious. "Calm down, none of us are going to starve. I forgot to mention my greatest gift: I can trap."

"Trap?" His face seems confused. "You mean people can trap animals?"

It's all the more hilarious. "Of course. Look, I'll go right now."

I set up traps and pretty soon we're feasting far better than we ever did on the food from the Cornucopia and it's clear Danila's never had fresh-killed rabbit before because he's just sitting there smiling like an idiot.

"Can you teach me?"

"Course," I reply. "It's kind of tricky but I'm sure you'll get the hang of it."

He doesn't just 'get the hang of it', he seems born to make traps.

"We can make all sorts of knots back in 4," he says.

"Right, I forgot. When I showed Mags that I could make a trap, she was almost beside herself in joy."

"I guess it makes sense why we're friends then."

Friends. Not allies. Friends. I smile.

But although Danila can trap, he certainly is no killer. He flinches every time I slit their throats. I can't help but make fun of him.

"What, you can eat it well enough but the process of killing it makes you squeamish?"

He nods his head. "Especially after the Cornucopia," he whispers and he looks so haunted that I immediately feel guilty.

"There's nothing wrong with not being able to kill," I say, repeating my father from all those years ago.

He nods his head and then sighs. "I just wish we had a bow and some arrows."

That strikes me as a strange thing to say. "Why? I've never held a bow or arrows in my entire life."

"Maybe not," he says, "but I have. I could actually be of some use if Shard hadn't taken the only bow in the entire pile of weapons. Plus," he says, looking down and drawing his hands into tight little fists, "I think I could kill with it." He changes the topic real quick. "You know who Shard is, right?"

I nod my head. "Boy from 2. I didn't realize you could shoot with a bow and arrow. Why didn't you mention it sooner?"

"Didn't know if you were trustworthy yet." He eyes me. "But I trust you now."

"Well," I say, "let's hope either Shard decides to share or some sponsor really likes you."

"I haven't gotten anything from any sponsor."

"Me either," I say. "But that doesn't mean it won't happen. At least there is a bow and arrows in the arena. My weapon is throwing knives and they didn't even provide me with one."

"Well we're screwed."

"Yeah," I say. "Pretty much."

And for some reason just admitting it makes it hilarious and we can't help but laugh all the way back to our camp.

Two cannons go off that day and that night we watch again to see who they are.

The boy from District 7. And the girl from District 12.

The girl.

12.

Anna.

Danila watches my face but I say nothing, do nothing. In the end I suppose I don't really get the right to grieve. I barely knew her. But now she's dead and the fact that it's someone from my district and someone that I actually knew still digs deep within me, carving out a hollowness. She may not have always been nice but she smiled at me that one time before evaluations. She wasn't all bad. She didn't deserve to die like this.

"12 dead," Danila finally comments.

I nod my head but I feel like I'm a puppet being controlled by someone else. "12 to go. We made it halfway."

As the anthem finishes off we think that's all there is but then we hear the announcer loud and clear.

"Attention. Attention all tributes."

Danila and I look at each other. This can only mean one thing…

"Some of you may have noticed a lack of parachutes in so far. Rest assured that despite this, your sponsors have been quite generous with their gifts. But since you were chosen to be here, it has been decided that you must prove yourself in order to receive these gifts. A feast will be held tomorrow at dawn at the Cornucopia. Come and prove yourself or stay where you are and risk losing something which may very well save your life. That will be all and may the odds be ever in your favor."

My first thought is that of anger. Leave it to the Gamemakers to take the one thing we're allowed to have in the arena and make us fight for it. It's probably because the Bloodbath had so little victims, people must be saying how boring the Games are and so of course some more people have to die. If I could just have one day with those Gamemakers, one hour…

"Jay, this is fantastic!" Danila says. "Maybe they heard our conversation! Maybe there'll be a bow and arrows and throwing knives for you. Maybe there'll even be food!"

Danila's comment serves to further inflame me. We've actually been doing fine on food, thank you very much. But of course, a whiny little boy from 4 wouldn't know that, now would he? He's always had his belly filled and now that he has to starve just a teensy-weensy little bit, he's all in a tumble.

I have to remind myself that none of this is Danila's fault. I'm probably still in shock from Anna's death.

"We're going, right?" Danila asks.

My first thought is to say no. A feast, much less one with 12 tributes all vying for the same things, is going to be a nightmare – not to mention my penchant for killing. But then I think on those throwing knives.

Damn. I really need those throwing knives.

"We're going to check it out," I say like it's a saunter into the Hob. "But if things look really ugly or we don't see anything that takes our fancy, we are out of there."

Danila nods his head. "Fair enough to me."

"Good. Now let's get some sleep. I want us to be well-rested if we're going to have to fight tomorrow."

* * *

><p>It's a flock of jabberjays that wakes me around midnight, cawing and screeching something that's only getting louder and louder with each passing second.<p>

And then I bolt straight up because they're mimicking a girl's scream.

Anna's scream.

"JAY! HELP ME!"


	10. After: Sins of the Father

The lost child lay between us like an unfathomable chasm, something I could never cross or even attempt to do so. Yondrie's silence almost swallowed me whole. I knew she blamed me and perhaps always would. One day she would talk again, maybe even forgive me, but she would always bear the scars of what I had done.

I had traded one evil for another. I had become the Hanging Tree.

Suddenly I understood my father so much more.

Less than a year later when the sun stretched long into an afternoon and her silence had broken into short words, Yondrie sat across from me at the dinner table.

"I'm pregnant," she stated simply.

And there was only one thing I could say, "That's wonderful."

The front door banged open as Dahlia came bounding back from school, from her first year in the real world.

"Mom? Dad?"

Yondrie leaned in. "I'm keeping this one, Jay," she whispered to me, her eyes fierce. "No matter what happens."

I didn't dare disagree.

"Mom?" Dahlia said, coming in just as Yondrie left. She looked at me for an answer.

"Don't worry about it, Dahls," I said, gesturing for her to sit down. "How was school?"

"It was good." She shifted in her chair. "My teacher talked about you actually."

So this was finally the day. "Really?"

"Yeah."

"And what did she say?"

"That you're a victor," Dahlia recited. "That you're the only victor in all of District 12 and that I was really lucky that you were because that's why we have such nice things."

I winced. I was always worried that Dahlia might be picked on because she dressed better and ate better than any other child around, including the mayor's.

"And did your teacher explain how I became a victor?"

Dahlia nodded her head. "It has to do with the Games. You won out of all the kids in all of the districts because you were the last one alive." She seemed to think on this for a moment. "What're the Games like, Daddy?"

"They're scary," I replied. "It was more luck than skill that made me win."

And I realized that that line, that one line spoken to my child was the truest thing I had ever said about the Games.

"I suppose it must be hard," she said. "If I was in the Games, I would fi-"

"No, Dahlia," I cut in. "Don't say that. Don't ever say that. You are not going into the Games. Understand?"

"Yes, Daddy," she said. But I saw the spark in her that said otherwise.

"Good." And I quickly changed the topic to something else before she came up with some other notion on the Games that I never wanted to contemplate again.

* * *

><p>The child was born in May, between Dahlia's and the lost child's birthday. From the beginning he was a quiet one, birth so quick and him barely even making a cry. Even in my arms he slept easily and without a fight.<p>

He looked exactly like me.

His birth seemed to heal Yondrie as much as she ever would be. She laughed at Dahlia's smug little smile that it was the boy she had always wanted. She even smiled at me.

"What do you want to name him, Jay?"

"Cam," I said immediately. "My grandfather's name."

"Cam Tipper," she said, looking at our son. "It sounds like a good name for this little man.

He yawned as he squirmed into a deeper sleep. I sat on the bed, Yondrie and Dahlia beside me and we sat there for hours it seemed, finally allowed to be at peace.

The banging on the door in the middle of the night was frenzied and terrified. I opened it to find my mother quite older and smaller than I remembered.

"Jay," she said. "It's your father. There's something wrong with him…I don't think he has long left. I know you've refused to talk to him but-"

I didn't hear the rest because I was yanking on my coat and running out the door.

"Let's get the doctor's opinion first."

* * *

><p>I spent the last three days of my father's life at his side, perhaps trying to hopelessly make up for time lost. He didn't wake up too much and when he did, he was delirious, thinking me seventeen and dead in the Games, begging my forgiveness, or thinking me seven and explaining in simple words how to trap. But worse still were the times when he awoke and thought me nothing but a stranger.<p>

The doctor wasn't optimistic, his lungs had been ground into nothing working in that wretched mine and nothing he did seemed to soothe Dad's awful fever or wracking cough.

But then, on the very last day, Dad finally broke his delirium.

"Well, I must be really gone now if I'm seeing Jay back here," he said wearily, barely managing the strength to look at me.

"It really is me, Dad," I said and then rushed out, "I'm sorry that I left so abruptly. I'm sorry that we never talked. I'm sorry I forsook you when you needed me most."

"You didn't, Jay. You always gave us money, no matter how you felt. And I'm sorry, too. For everything."

"I understand now," I said and took in a breath not realizing how hard it was to say the words until that very moment. "I've had to make difficult choices now too. And I understand why you had to."

"I'm sorry that you have to understand," he said and smiled with a life of pain behind him.

"I can't make up for everything," I continued, "but I thought I could let you have this." And then I brought in Cam who awoke to my carrying him but didn't make a sound, just sat and stared at this world and this strange man who now held him.

Dad didn't stop smiling and couldn't help asking me every single question he possibly could about Cam until we both lapsed into silence, the only sound his labored breathing.

"Jay," he finally said, "do you remember that day in the forest before your first Reaping?"

I nodded my head. "Of course."

"I've thought about that day over and over. I know I shouldn't have taught you that song so young or our history, maybe at all-"

"Dad, you had to."

"But the reason I became so upset," he continued on, "was because you were so brave. Singing that song, the fight in your eyes. So much like your grandfather. That's something I never could be and perhaps I resented it."

Brave. The word echoed around me. Never once in all my life did I ever think of myself as brave.

"You fight when others stand down. You defy when others cower. You have some spark in you I will never understand, the spark of the rebels. The spark that will one day free Panem. Never lose that, understand me?"

"I never will, Dad. I promise."

"Good," he said, closing his eyes. "Good."

He never woke again.

Afterwards I asked Mom to come live with us. She refused, saying we had our hands full as it was and that she wanted to be close to Dad's spirit.

Maybe even then she knew she was dying, she only lived another couple months. The doctor said her heart just gave out. I don't think I've ever heard an explanation more true than that.

* * *

><p>For the next several years our lives were largely uneventful. Dahlia and Cam both grew each day, Yondrie spent her time gardening, and I mentored the Games for District 12 every year with no success.<p>

Every day Cam seemed to resemble me more and more. But that was as far as our similarities went. In personality, he was nothing but gentle and sweet, someone who never wanted to hurt a living thing. He sang as soon as he could talk, the mockingjays always picking up his songs. He was never surprised by this though. He only giggled and began to teach them something else.

Dahlia seemed to sense this gentleness too. She watched and protected and played with him whenever they were together. Many hours they spent in the empty houses in the Victors' Village, the greatest playground District 12 was ever to see.

But that was as much kindness as Dahlia usually showed. I thought her strong-willed and stubborn as a baby and a young child. But as she grew older she seemed to possess a mean streak. More than once she got into fights with other girls and even some of the boys. Sometimes it was for the most mundane of reasons. But a lot of other times it wasn't.

"They were saying things about you," she said to me once when she had come home with blood streaming from her nose. "They said you're a murderer, that you killed the kids in your Games and took pleasure in it. They said that you purposely send the kids from our district to die every year because you enjoy seeing them bleed. They said such horrible, horrible things!"

"Dahlia," I said. "I've heard them say as such and worse to my face but you don't see me getting into fistfights over it."

"Well they're wrong and I'm not just going to stand there and take it," she said and looked at me with such pain in her eyes. "Why do they say such things about you?" she whispered.

I sighed. How was I to explain any of this? "You know people around here don't like me, Dahlia," I finally replied. "Let's leave it at that."

She nodded her head and then threw herself into my arms. "I love you, Dad. They don't know you like I do."

And fight withstanding, I couldn't help but smile. "I love you too, Dahls."

But at times that seemed to be the least of my worries concerning Dahlia. She also seemed to hold a disturbing fascination with the Games. She was always asking me what weapons I had used and whether I had decided to fight in the Bloodbath and who I had trusted and why and how did I know that I could trust them. Sometimes I felt like screaming at her to stop this horror. But I knew I couldn't. After all, I was the one who had given her this sick gift.

Even without seeing my Games she seemed to have my talents. The times I went outside the fence and took her along she showed a proficiency at throwing knives at ten I had never seen anyone possess.

Anyone except me.

I tried to stop her. I forbade her from using knives and got rid of any found in her possession. But somehow she always found more.

I tried to direct her interest to anything else, but she wasn't interested. She was only interested in the curve of a knife, a statistic in the Games, or a fistfight at school.

By the time Dahlia was eleven and the 39th Hunger Games was nearing, I was utterly exhausted, at her and another failed Games. I was starting to suspect that the President was purposefully deterring sponsors from me, perhaps as a warning, perhaps as a way to punish me, perhaps as a way to keep me paranoid.

Well, it was working.

I was talking to Yondrie that day when the icy feeling of horror that I usually felt about the Games overcame me, though I could think of no honest reason why. I tried to focus on Yondrie's words but the feeling came back again and again like a second heartbeat.

And then I heard it, as clear as day, "As you can see, the arena for the 25th Hunger Games was in an opposing style, one part of the arena to foil the other. It was the first time this sort of style was used in a Games and for several years after it became quite popular."

I don't remember what Yondrie said. All I remember is turning and walking straight into the living room where the television flickered with life. Dahlia was sitting there. Cam too, five-year-old Cam who probably had no clue what he was watching.

It wasn't uncommon for channels to replay Games from different years, especially when one was as notable as mine. In between the current Games, citizens of the Capitol still needed their fix and the Gamemakers of past and present were always releasing past Games with never before seen footage or a newer commentary, like this one. But I had specifically forbidden Dahlia from watching anything of the sort.

And now she was disobeying me. With my Games.

The next line stole whatever words I had from my tongue. "And just coming out of his tube is the victor of this Games, Jay Tipper from District 12, their first and so far only winner."

And there I was, seventeen once more, looking scared and shaky and totally out of it.

"He may not look like much but he had a thirst for killing which seemed to rival the tributes from 1 and 2. In fact, this shaky teenager would go on to score 10 kills, one of the highest for any victor, or for that matter, any tribute in the Games so-"

That was enough. I couldn't bear to hear anymore. I snapped off the television and then turned to Dahlia.

"What have I told you time and time again? But do you listen?" I yelled.

But she wasn't easily scared off. She crossed her arms. "It wasn't my fault, it just came on. Besides, it's not like I'm doing anything wrong. Watching television isn't a crime in this country."

"Well, it's a crime in this household and I've made that clear. Unless there's mandatory television on you don't get to watch anything for the next two weeks."

"That's unfair!"

"Well, it's the way it's going to be."

She stared me down with contempt. "I hate you," she spat.

Cam, not one for fighting, began to cry.

Dahlia jumped up from the sofa.

"You're just upset because I'm exactly like you," she hissed. "Well, guess what? I am and that's never going to change! In fact, when I'm old enough, I might just volunteer for the Games because I know I can win and I know I'll enjoy every step on the way!"

She stomped upstairs, right past Yondrie, and slammed her door so hard, the house shook for a good minute afterwards.

* * *

><p>I found I couldn't sleep that night.<p>

"What is wrong with that child?" I whispered once Yondrie demanded to know why I was staring at the ceiling so intently. "Even at her age I never held such an obsession with the Games."

"She's just curious," Yondrie replied. "It's natural for a child to be so, especially one like her. Imagine if your father had done something worth fame and fortune only you weren't allowed to know, even though everyone else knew and talked about it and even taunted you with it. It's your defining moment and she doesn't even know what happened."

"Well, sometimes I almost wish I hadn't won the Games," I snapped tiredly, "at least then they would've left us all alone." I regretted the words as soon as they came out of my mouth.

"You don't mean that," Yondrie said quietly. "They would've never left any of us alone."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. I never regret that I came back to you, that we had Dahlia and Cam. No matter what I went through, what I will go through, it was worth it for you and them."

We fell silent, it was so rarely we talked about the Games.

"It still haunts you, doesn't it?" she finally said, barely louder than a whisper. "Sometimes you get that look in your eye, the one you had just after the Games, like you're a million miles away."

"It's the strangest things that bring me back," I said just as quiet. "Sometimes it's a string of words. Other times it's a look or a smile or a laugh. Sometimes it's nothing. I just have nightmares like I did so soon after the Games for no reason at all and I spend the day after waiting for someone to strike."

I almost didn't say the next part. "Cam reminds me so much of Danila. Every day. I…I can't explain it."

"Maybe it's life's way of giving him back to you. After what happened."

"Yeah," I said. "Maybe."

The room fell silent again as it began to rain, slowly at first and then growing so loud it was almost a roar.

"The truth is, Yondrie, I'm terrified," I said even if it did make me sound like I was seventeen once more. "I don't know what's going to happen to Dahlia or Cam or even us. I barely even know what I'm doing."

"I am frightened too," she said. "I always have been. New fears come to replace old and on and on it goes. We can just try to be strong, Jay. That's all any of us can do."

She kissed me then and I didn't let go of her for a very long time.

* * *

><p>Dahlia turned twelve the year of the 40th Hunger Games and so I had to bring her down to the Justice Building to sign her up for the Reaping. I hated how they made us do that, made us wait in line and fill out a form and sign our consent as if we were just registering our child for school or some other mundane thing. The only good part was that with my wealth as a victor we needed no teserrae and Dahlia's name was only going to be put in once.<p>

But it was difficult all the same. Dahlia peered up at me the entire time we were there and asked about a dozen questions for every line I filled out.

The Reaping came, just like it did every single year. Yondrie went about dressing Dahlia in her finest clothes and braiding her hair in extravagant patterns. I walked her all the way to the square.

"Are you frightened?" I asked. "It's okay to be scared."

She shook her head. "I'm not scared at all." And she dropped my stride and joined the other twelve-year-olds, her tall frame a head above all the others.

I took my place on the stage as the escort started the ceremony. It was some inane, prattling woman – as they all were – whose name escaped me. Shortly after my Games, Georgia and the original prep team had all disappeared. I supposed they could have moved on to other jobs but again the paranoia within me wondered whether it was a warning by President Snow that I could just as easily be replaced.

"As always, ladies first," the escort said and she went to the female reaping ball.

I squeezed my hands so tightly I thought for sure I was cutting into my flesh. It was one thing to imagine one day Dahlia might be here, might be taken. It was quite another to be actually here, to see her frame stare back at me with her eagerness.

No. Maybe it was the paranoia. Snow couldn't take her yet. She was far too young. He'd take her when she was older, if at all.

It was just a slip of paper.

And yet that paper held the one name I never wanted to hear.

Everyone was looking at me with pity and sympathy, something I hadn't seen from most of them in a very long time. I tried to look calm and collected as Dahlia slipped up onto the stage because this was about the Games now and about getting her sponsors and not giving Snow the satisfaction of watching me break down. So I stared ahead, like Mags did all those years ago, and tried to distance myself as much as I possibly could.

Dahlia didn't need to pretend. She sauntered up with a smirk on her face as 12 gave a bare applause.

"Oh, isn't this exciting?" the escort said. "A tribute who is the daughter of our very own victor. But we still have a boy to pick as well!"

I closed my eyes. I could feel 12's resentment. They knew that whichever boy was picked would be overlooked compared to my own daughter. I couldn't deny it either. Maybe I couldn't have stopped Dahlia from coming up here but I would get her out even if it killed me and everyone else besides.

"Silas Bennett."

The name pricked something in my mind and even before I opened my eyes and heard him cry out, I knew who this poor child's father was.

Kit.

It would almost be funny if it wasn't so deadly serious.

* * *

><p>That chair again. That damned stupid chair. Except I wasn't sitting in it this time.<p>

"I'm going to bring her home, Yondrie," I said. "I am."

Yondrie seemed unable to hear. She was patting Dahlia on the knee and saying, "Remember to do what your father says. He knows best. And follow all the safety instructions the other instructors tell you," like this was some sort of happy trip outside the fence.

And Dahlia was certainly playing the part. "Of course, Mom," she said, rolling her eyes. "I'm not a little kid anymore."

"Yes," Yondrie said, "yes you are."

We all fell silent, some unspoken agreement between all of us not to mention this looming threat, the only sound being Cam's giggles as he sat on his precious sister's lap.

Yondrie's eyes filled with tears as a Peacekeeper came to take her and Cam away. "We knew this would happen one day," she whispered to me, "but I'm not ready."

"It's going to be alright," I said still just trying to convince myself. "If anyone can make it, it's Dahlia."

I called over to Dahlia once Yondrie had left. "I'm just going to check how the boy is doing, alright?" I said. "Are you good staying here?"

She nodded her head.

"You do realize you're shaking."

"I'm fine, Dad," she said and then repeated, "I'm not a little kid anymore."

"Of course. How could I forget?" I said, kissing her forehead before I left.

Kit was already there with his son, a boy who looked barely fifteen. Even so he seemed the eldest of Kit's brood, a ragtag group of five kids who surrounded Kit's every movement. A wife and mother had clearly been in the picture until recently; the child asleep in Kit's arms looked only six months old.

Kit looked up as I walked in and we seemed to stare at each other across some great divide that neither of us would ever be able to cross. Kit was only thirty-two, like me, but he seemed centuries older. No more was the boy who laughed and flirted at the Hob. Instead, a man stood, one who had been ground into the dust like my father. His eyes were lined with worry and suffering and his hair looked like ash.

I didn't know this man.

"Now, Silas," he said to this boy, "pay attention to what the others have to teach you. You listen to Mr. Tipper here. Despite what others say, he's a good man. You show him how well you can shoot a bow. He'll teach you far better than I can."

I wanted to refute that but didn't feel it was my place to interrupt or quite frankly, be here at all. I was about to leave when Kit handed off the sleeping baby to a girl who looked about twelve or thirteen and walked towards me.

After all these years I had no idea what to expect. He probably wasn't afraid of me anymore but I didn't know if he despised me, especially after this twist. I held out my hand to shake.

He embraced me instead.

"Jay," he whispered hoarsely. "Jay, Jay, Jay. What happened to us?"

"We got old. I think," I replied and finally saw that smile of his youth, though he was missing a tooth or two now.

We both fell silent as we stepped outside. I suppose time has a way of doing that to people, erasing the words and the laughs they could have so easily shared once long ago.

"I know I can't ask you to choose Silas over your daughter," he said finally, his voice breaking. "But if it's possible…if somehow Dahlia doesn't make it…"

Maybe some things time erased. But there was still the core that remained.

"Kit," I said, "if Dahlia dies and your son is still living I will do everything in my power to bring him home. Everything. I will behave like he's my own."

"Thank you, Jay. I'm sorry about what happened after the Games, I-"

"It doesn't matter anymore," I said.

"Thank you," he said, smiling once more and I knew that we were talking about something far more important than some stupid Games.

* * *

><p>That night, after everyone else had gone to sleep on the train, I woke Dahlia.<p>

"Dad? What's going on?"

I pressed my lips together as I turned on the screen. "We're going to watch my Games."

I could tell she was excited, moving to the edge of the bed while the screen flickered to life with the words OFFICIAL DOCUMENTATION OF THE 25TH HUNGER GAMES, THE 1ST QUARTER QUELL before jumping to President Laurent (with his face now obscured and voice changed to President Snow's) reading out the twist of that year's Games before abruptly moving to the Reapings.

I sat behind her as it showed only the districts that played the biggest role. 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, and finally 12. They played my Reaping in full, including Yondrie screaming my name and kissing me. Dahlia seemed surprised by this.

"You and Mom were in love all the way back before your Games?"

I nodded my head. It struck me as strange that Dahlia didn't know this, but then again it wasn't like Yondrie and I ever talked about things like that.

There're a lot of things we never talked about.

It continued, showing training and interviews and then finally the Games. I didn't flinch watching it but I didn't look at Dahlia either, just stared at the screen until my eyes became blurry and I couldn't see anything at all. Only when it ended with the announcement of me as the winner did I finally turn to Dahlia.

Even from her I expected to see fear then but I still saw only pride.

"I'm going to win, Dad," she said to me, her voice fierce. "Let's show them what our family's made of." And I saw none of Yondrie in her.

I see only me.

* * *

><p>I suppose it should have come as no surprise – after all she had wit and charm I never had plus the skills to show them off in a way I never did – when she became one of the most prominent tributes before the Games.<p>

Everything she did seemed to attract attention. She walked into a room and made friends with everyone. She went into training and never missed a target. Even in the Tributes Parade where District 12 again had the most forgettable costumes, everyone noticed her bright smile and genuine eagerness.

In many ways she was like a Career tribute. She certainly had the training – if self-imposed – and unlike me and the rest of the outlier districts, she had never known hunger. And that concerned me, not only because of her arrogance and attitude, but because of how the real Careers and other tributes perceived her. I saw their looks of contempt as she walked into training, saw their calculations. They knew that if they wanted to win, Dahlia was the first one they needed to take out.

"You can't always just go into a room and show how deadly you are," I told her once at dinner. "Others are watching and if they know your exact strengths and weaknesses then they know what to target when you're in the arena."

"So, what? You're saying I should look weak? Those Careers should be afraid of me, they're the ones who always send fear into everyone else. Let them see how it feels for us!"

I sighed. Every moment was painful. Every moment I wondered if this was the last time I would ever say this to her, last time I would ever have her in front of me again. I wondered if I was teaching her enough, wondered if I was telling her everything she needed to survive.

But that's the thing about the Games. You never know what you need until you're right in the center of trouble.

Silas was equally hard to work with but for different reasons. It pained me to know that this was Kit's boy and that either he or Dahlia would soon be dead, if not both. He was shy, seemingly without Kit's rambunctious nature although this may have been because he feared me; more often than not my tributes were quiet around me. However once I saw how good he was with a bow and told him so, he gave me a smile so much like Kit's it took me a moment to realize it wasn't him.

How was I going to do this?

"Jay!"

I smiled despite my pain. Here was the one thing I always looked forward to out of the horror of the Games. The one person who would always be my ally.

"Mags!" I turned as she clapped me on the shoulder. "It's been too long!"

Technically it was illegal, here on the training floor or really anywhere else, for mentors from different districts to talk and associate with one another. But it was not really enforced, especially when the mentors were being friendly.

"I saw the Reaping for 12," she whispered, just low enough for the Gamemakers not to overhear. "I'm so sorry."

I shrugged my shoulders like it was not a big deal. Snow could take everything else but he couldn't take my pain.

"Dahlia," I called out as she slammed another knife into the target before her. "Do you remember Mags? She visited our home once, you were fairly young at the time."

She peered up for a second before lining up for another shot. "Yeah. I remember."

I winced as the knife left her grasp. Though I knew it was for survival now, it still pained me to see the ease of which she held them and loved them like she was born to do.

"You've grown into a beautiful young lady," Mags said politely.

"'Beautiful young lady'," Dahlia muttered as she flipped the knives in her hand. "I prefer precise, deadly, and underestimated," she said, sinking a knife into a target with each word.

I was not amused. "Dahlia…"

"But thank you for the compliment," she said, turning to Mags and giving a genuine smile. "I know you're not one to speak lightly so I know your words mean much."

I rolled my eyes. Maybe Dahlia was right, she didn't need to fear the Careers as much as they needed to fear her.

* * *

><p>I had a pretty good idea what Dahlia and Silas both showed the Gamemakers in their private training session and so I was unsurprised with their high results.<p>

"That 9 can't be mine, can it?" Silas asked timidly, only a bare amount of trust for me.

I smiled. "Of course it is. You earned it. And any sponsor would be foolish not to see that."

Dahlia on the other hand was a little less modest.

"I deserved higher," she said, flipping her hair. "Are those Gamemakers blind? I never missed a target. Every single one of my throws would have killed a person. A 10? I should have gotten a 12!"

It made me angry. I had already been approached by several top tier sponsors willing to support Dahlia through the Games. Doing anything to attract attention now was only doing more and more damage. I had tried to tell her that but as usual, she wouldn't listen.

It didn't matter anymore I supposed. Most of the other tributes already viewed her as a threat. It wasn't like she couldn't do any worse.

The interviews came and went pretty quietly. Dahlia was most likely the highlight of the evening, what with Flickerman replaying the footage from my interview and pointing out our similarities. Perhaps we were but up on a stage, we were two different people. All my life I had shied away from the camera. Now Dahlia sat practically beaming in it.

Poor quiet Silas looked quite insignificant after her. He whispered all of his answers as the rest of Panem strained to hear.

Then came the last night, the last few hours I would have with Dahlia. I thought she would finally be a little nervous but after the interview she just fell asleep, her face again looking like the innocent angel she wasn't in life.

But sleep didn't find me so easily and so I went to the roof to search for silence and maybe some peace before the world shifted irreparably yet again.

I didn't see the shadow of a figure until it touched the tip of my shoulder and I jumped back, always ever ready to fight since the Games.

"I'm sorry," came Mags' whisper. "I didn't mean to frighten you."

I could only exhale, trying to stop the fear that seemed to pour out of me wherever I went.

"You ever wanted to have kids, Mags?" I asked, perhaps a strange follow up but also long overdue. It struck me how little I did know of Mags, how little I had looked past my fear and my pain to see the others around me who probably suffered the same.

"Once," she said with a broken smile I had yet to see. "But you don't want to hear about that, Jay."

"No," I said. "If you don't mind I would actually really like to hear."

So she told me all that had happened. Of winning the 13th Games and the guilt it had given her. Of the promise she made to herself to become a better person because of it. Of a boy she had loved who refused to marry her after what she had done in the Games, despite her change of heart. Of the children and family she wanted to have which now would never happen.

"I'm so sorry," I said as she neared the end, as the sun rose for another day. I didn't know what I would've done without Yondrie and yet Mags had had to do without.

"Oh, don't feel too bad for me, Jay," she said with a wave of her hand as she seemingly swept all the pain away for another time. "The tributes are my children now," she said, giving me a smile. "And I am always proud of my children."

And even though it was the worse day of my life, I couldn't help but be grateful for that.

* * *

><p>I never held Dahlia so tightly as I did in front of that hovercraft.<p>

"I'm not scared, Dad," she said.

Of course she wasn't. She never was.

"I love you so much," I said. "And no matter what happens out there, remember we're all so very proud of you."

"I know," she said. "And I love you too."

I paused, unsure if I should ask of this favour but plunged ahead anyways. "I need you to do something for me, okay? I want you to look out for Silas."

She tilted her head. "Like avenge his death? Like what happened in your Games?"

I shook my head, her violent mind even too quick for mine. "I mean if you see someone about to kill him and you can protect him, do it. I understand that there can only be one victor but you and Silas are from the same district. Support each other if you can."

"Okay," she said. "I'll try. But that's all I can do."

"One more thing," I said and then pulled out the mockingjay pin, so old now yet still gleaming in the morning light. I placed it in Dahlia's hand.

"Your pin?" she said. "From your Games? But what does that have to do with-"

"It's our family's pin," I said to her. "It was made by your great-grandfather after the Dark Days. It was meant to…" I sighed, knowing I couldn't tell her everything it meant with so little time and with the Capitol all around us. "It means that we do not condone. Remember that. Even if you find it fun, even if you enjoy it, it doesn't mean that it's right. It doesn't mean that we will ever condone what they do to us."

She didn't answer, instead pinning the mockingjay to her chest but when she looked up her eyes were steel.

"I won't ever condone," she said. "No matter what happens, I will always remember what you have taught me and the things they have done to us."

She walked towards the hovercraft without another word. I didn't stop her. With her eyes flashing and her tall stance, all I could think was that this was exactly how I looked to President Snow all those years ago. Defiant yet helpless against the coming storm.

* * *

><p>In general a mentor was pretty busy during the Games; trying to sweet talk Gamemakers and sponsors, being interviewed, figuring out where your tributes were and what they needed most. But there were two exceptions to this. The first was if or when your tributes died as the Capitol forced all mentors to stay as long as the Games continued, most likely to drive in the fact how powerless we all were. The second was now.<p>

The Cornucopia Bloodbath was always the highlight of the Games, superseded only by the final battle for the victor. The Capitol pretty much stopped all work that day, allowing everyone to celebrate the beginning of the Games. And Capitol citizens took full advantage, large screens plastered on every street and high-end parties going long into the night. Certainly us mentors didn't want to be out there with their sickening happiness. But we also had no business to attend to so early on.

So while our tributes fought and the Capitol partied, us mentors gathered round the large screen set up in the training room and braced ourselves as the Games began anew.

Mags stayed close as I came down to watch, the rest murmuring a few condolences and giving me empathetic glances.

The first shots of the arena now flickered onto the screen. The arena wasn't particularly spectacular; a traditional Cornucopia, a long field for tributes to fight in, a mountain range, and a small forest. Not much room to hide. I clenched my fists.

Now the tributes coming out of their tubes. It saddened me to see how tiny Dahlia looked compared to the rest, the only twelve-year-old this year.

"And there's Dahlia Tipper, daughter of District 12's only victor, Jay Tipper."

"Well, she certainly seems to take after her father. Look at her, so young and yet so ready to fight."

It was humiliating having to sit there and listen to them talk about my family like they had any sort of right to. Such an insignificant detail compared to the rest yet it seemed to cut deeper than anything else the Capitol could devise. But at least they mentioned Dahlia like she was a viable tribute. They brushed over Silas so quickly he barely appeared onscreen, that terrified face never gaining sympathy.

The sixty seconds seemed to go faster than any other minute in my life.

And then it began.

Filming the Cornucopia Bloodbath had always been a difficult process as everything moved so quickly. Usually the cameras tried to go wide to show as much as possible, saving specific kills and details for the replays later on. Only if nothing else was going on did they go close in.

Every moment and every shot I searched for Dahlia. I saw that she pushed off, that she was going into the Cornucopia against my instructions. Her hands closed around the gleaming throwing knives just as the first couple of kills began.

It was hard to see who was dying as these kids had no numbers on their coats or shirts like my Games, I mostly knew from the mentors in the room who cursed or turned away suddenly as a tribute's blood began to spill.

As soon as Dahlia had her knives she was one of those who killed, throwing several knives at tributes who tried to close in on her, one of those I saw was even about to kill Silas, who had fallen on the ground in a scramble for a bow and some arrows.

_Good girl, Dahlia._

She helped him up and even grabbed a backpack in the process. Both were about to go running into the forest when it happened.

Fire sprouted up from the ground, huge flames that licked the sky, all around the field, cutting off every escape and forcing the tributes at the Cornucopia to stay together and fight which from what I could tell was everyone except for one boy who had run straight towards the mountain range at the very beginning. Even from inside the tributes' center I could hear the crowds of the Capitol screaming in anticipation.

I felt Mags squeeze my shoulder and I almost had to look away. Dahlia might be able to fight, but she couldn't fight them all.

She tried. Anyone who got near her she fended off. Silas pulled out his bow and arrows and shot until he had nothing left. But then came a boy with several large spears, a boy I did recognize because of the way he had looked with such hate at Dahlia in training, the boy from District 5. All the way at the other end of the Cornucopia I saw him shoot the spear at Silas and watched as it went right through his chest. He only had time to cough up blood as he died.

Kit. _I'm so sorry._

Then the boy came for Dahlia. She had no more knives. She had no escape as he threw her to the ground.

"No. No, please!" she said, now looking frightened, the only time in my life I had ever seen her so terrified.

It sounded and looked so much like my nightmares from so long ago when she hadn't even been born. I should have known this would have been the end result. I should have known it would always end like this.

"Or what?" the boy jeered. "Your father's not going to come and save you."

* * *

><p>I don't remember her death. They must have showed it, obviously. And I must have watched. All I remember is going up to the 12 suite and ripping everything apart. I only stopped when they restrained me and shot me up with some sort of drug. I don't remember anything beyond that except for the train back to 12 – a rare exception to the rule of mentors staying in the Capitol – the rest of the Games playing out dully.<p>

I did learn that Dahlia placed fifth out of twenty-four, Silas sixth – the highest any of my tributes had ever gotten. After Dahlia died, the fire broke, sank back into the earth like it had never existed, like some cruel mockery of what my father had said the rebellion was.

One boy escaped before. Three survived the Bloodbath. Twenty tributes died at the Cornucopia, the highest of any Bloodbath ever.

The Games were short that year, only three days long, and considered to be one of the most boring. It was rumored that a lot of the Gamemakers got in trouble for engineering that forest fire. Nothing like it ever occurred in the Games again.

But the damage was done.

In the end the victor was the one person I wished would have been killed.

The boy from District 5.


	11. Before: Becoming the Hunter Part 1

_Several notes by the author up here:_

_1. As you may have noticed, time between updates for this story is becoming increasingly longer. This is because as time has gone on, I have had less of the story written beforehand. After this chapter, I'm going to have to write several of the next parts completely from scratch or do some heavy editing. As a result, although I am definitely finishing this story and posting it all up here, there may be a several weeks or a month of down time. I apologize._

_2. This fanfic now has a fanmix on **8tracks** entitled _Strange Things Did Happen Here_ under the username **sarahskies**. I debated for a long time making this public as this music was mostly just for me and to help me write but what the hey, if you're interested I've made it public and you can check it out!_

_3. Finally, as you most likely have seen throughout this story, I am not one to particularly be personable outside of the actual story. I usually don't add notes to my stories or talk to my readers at all because I pretty much just write for me and post it here and a few other places just in case anyone might possibly be interested. With that said, I am extremely grateful to anyone who has written a review, followed my story, or just stopped by to give it a chance. I cannot tell you how many times I've had a stupid grin on my face because of this. Thank you so much and stay awesome peeps!_

* * *

><p>No matter what Danila says – no matter what he does – I won't be calmed down.<p>

"Don't you understand? She was screaming my name before she died! She was calling to me to _save her_ and I didn't!"

"Look you couldn't have known, okay? It's just some messed up trick by the Gamemakers to get you all riled up."

"But she had to have said it. Jabberjays only copy. Danila…"

"Jay," he says, grabbing my shoulders like I'm thirteen and he's the seventeen-year-old, "get yourself together. The feast is in just under an hour. Are you ready or should we call it off?"

"Oh," I say, pulling out my knife, "I'm ready."

I know I must look insane, I feel insane, that darkness within me now having a target to place all its energy on.

"Jay…" Danila says, looking a little worried.

But for whatever reason, my bloodlust isn't scaring me. It's making me glad, let's go against the rest of the tributes, they damn well should fear me. "Trust me, Danila. We have a much better chance of surviving if I'm a little crazy, okay?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Do you trust me?"

"I trust you."

"C'mon then, let's go."

We tramp through the forest, reaching the edge just as dawn begins to light up the sky. Without even a sound a platform is raised out of the bottom floor of the Cornucopia. Despite there being only twelve tributes left, there are only seven objects on table. Nothing for 1 or 2 and frustratingly nothing for 4 but there is some sort of strange contraption for 3. If we want Shard's bow and arrows we'd better hope that this will lead all the Careers here. To Danila's (and probably the Career's) dismay, there is also no food.

But that is where the famine ends and the bounty begins. Unlike previous Games where Districts 1 through 6 would be doing quite well right now, this time around Districts 7 through 12 all have one tribute alive each and all of us have one object on that table. It almost makes me want to laugh, the fact that they probably put so little food in this arena this time around just because Capitol citizens must be saying how repetitive the Games have gotten with the Careers winning almost every year. But I don't because the thought is equally horrifying.

My eyes skim across all these brutal weapons for the outlier districts until I reach the end, that weapon surely meant for me with a 12 stamped on it.

Throwing knives.

I can't see everything from here – they seem to be connected to something else for some reason – but I can tell they're the best money can buy, even for a Capitol citizen.

And that they're meant for me.

Someone thinks I'm doing well enough in the Games to sponsor me. Someone wants to see me win.

The thought gives me all the more adrenaline.

"What's the plan?" Danila whispers after a full minute of silence, the arena seemingly devoid of its twelve contestants.

A plan? All I can think is how I want to sink one of those knives into whoever killed Anna…

"Let's wait it out and see what happens," I say, trying to refocus my mind. "I don't want us going in there only to get picked off by the Careers."

The more I think about it, the more I realize how badly the odds are against us. Once I have those knives in my hand, I'm sure we're going to be fine but until then I have pretty much no way of defending myself, much less Danila. My knife is good for close combat and I could try to use the bomb in a desperate situation when I have no other choice but for something like this I need long range and the only thing I have is right smack dab in the center of the Cornucopia.

One tribute – his coat says 11 – finally braves it, running out into the open. And just like that they all do, a girl from 9 with blue hair and then I catch a glimpse of the Careers running out too. They're not as fast nor as eager as at the beginning and I realize my earlier assumption was correct: they're absolutely dying without food. Only Killian who is perpetually unfazed, seems normal.

Perfect. Now we can just wait until everyone grabs their things and leaves.

That is, until the boy from 11 decides it would be a grand plan to take my throwing knives along with his machete.

"Oh, no you don't," I mutter under my breath. "Danila," I call over my shoulder, "you stay right there."

I don't wait for his response as I launch out into the open, slipping across the river and running straight towards 11 as he tumbles down the hill of the Cornucopia.

"Hey!" I yell to him. He looks up and all I can think is Anna and maybe he killed her and I'm swinging my knife as hard as I can.

It feels so good.

But he steps out of the way just in time and swings back, the machete very nearly taking off my head.

My head. I need to keep my head.

"Just give me the knives," I say, "and I'll let you go. We don't have to fight."

He swings at me again and I step further back.

"No," he says. "I've seen of what you can do. I think it better we finish this now."

He swings again and again and I can't get a good shot in. I don't dare run back to Danila for fear this boy would follow and if I go for my bomb, he'll surely kill me before I can even unzip my bag.

One thing he is doing is wearing me down. I don't know how many more swings I can dodge before he does some serious damage.

"Jay!" someone screams, in pain, in fear. It's Danila, a ghost of Anna's voice. It takes everything within me not to look but to plunge the knife into 11 as he startles from the yell.

He lets out a shocked gasp and reaches out to stab me but I just push the machete out of his reach.

Cannon.

I grab the throwing knives and realize that what they're connected to is a belt for me to wear around my waist. But I don't have time for that. I only have time to take out several and run towards Danila who's on the ground and the 9 girl is about to kill.

"Hey!" I yell to her and throw the knife. Too late do I realize these knives aren't like the ones in training. They're even better. They're weighted and thought out from someone left-handed like me. Good but that also means that the knife I just threw misses her head by several inches.

She smiles and seems to think me an easy target. She leaves Danila and walks towards me when I have the next knife in hand. I throw it with perfect accuracy. It goes right through her heart.

Cannon.

"What on earth were you thinking?!" I say, running over to Danila who's still lying on the ground. "You could have been killed! Didn't I tell you to stay in the trees?" I'm about to go on when I see his cheeks are wet with tears and the second I'm near enough, he latches on to me.

"I was so scared," he sobs. "I thought you were going to die and then, and then…"

It makes me angry because I know that in the Capitol they're looking at Danila and thinking how pathetic and weak he is just like when I wept the first time I killed those tributes, just like his Reaping.

They're the ones who're pathetic.

"Hey," I say. "It's all over. No one got us. We're good."

I don't mention the fact that for one of us to win, the other is still going to have to die.

"I know," he says. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry," I say but I barely hear myself. My eyes are already searching the Cornucopia for the next threat. Surprisingly the Careers haven't left even though I haven't heard or seen them kill a single person. They seem to be involved amongst themselves in some deep argument; Killian and his district partner against the rest. It's almost funny, I might have just killed two people and scratched out my survival but this argument might be what's been mostly playing in the Capitol and elsewhere if the Careers are more popular than I am and let's face it, no matter how many people I kill or mentions I make of Yondrie, they always will be.

But then I look at my throwing knives and I think about that one person, one person at least who sponsored me and wants to see me win.

There's someone else out here though, someone who's running straight to us. I get to my feet and help Danila up just as I pull out my knife still wet with blood.

"Hold it right there, boys," a girl says who's almost as tall as I am and probably has more muscle too. Then I see the axe on her shoulder and recognize her as the female tribute from District 7, the one that caught my eye at the Reaping.

"I'm not going to kill you, I just want your stuff; all of it. If you do as I say, you both get to leave here alive."

Without our stuff we're pretty much going to die anyways. I pull out a throwing knife as well. "You wish. You're dealing with the wrong people if you think that's going to work on us."

She looks at her gleaming axe. "Give me your stuff, kid. Or I take your head instead."

"Why don't you harass the Careers instead? They seem more your type anyways."

Even as I mention them, I can hear their argument getting louder. Killian's saying something about plans and organizations. Flicker is saying that Killian's weak.

"Well you have a smart little mouth on you, don't ya?" 7 says to me. "Want to say that again?"

"You're just a leech, Killian, and I don't need you here to win the Games. I just realized I never did."

"Yeah, I do want to say it again," I say. "We're too good for you so why don't you just move along."

"You're only killing yourself, Flicker."

"Jay," Danila says, tugging on my arm, his eyes still huge with fear. "Let's just give her our stuff and get out of here."

"Sorry, kid," 7 says just as I hear one of the Careers scream out in pain, "that boat has already sailed."

She raises her axe and I'm ready to spring my knife on her when out of the corner of my eye I see Killian grab whatever that thing is from the table and put it into the contraption he's had since the Bloodbath. But that's all the warning I get before he turns it on and blasts us all.

It's not even a high-pitched sound as much as it's a sound at all. It's more like the current they stunned us with on the hovercraft, except unbearably painful. I don't even realize what I'm doing until I'm on the ground, knife still in hand, screaming in pain.

It must've ended, that's the only explanation I can think of. Killian, who could have killed us all, instead drags his district partner, the one who was injured, into the forest but a moment later I hear a cannon fire if my sizzling and popping ears are hearing it correctly.

The 7 girl looks dizzy and so out of it that I deem her non-threatening, moving directly to Danila who looks far worse for wear. He was closer to Killain's device after all, and his eyes are rolling in his head. I'm really worried that he's going to start going into convulsions at any moment. I try to carry him but he's far too heavy for my slender frame. I fuzzily see the Careers coming towards us and I fumble out a knife but they don't reach for me.

They reach for 7.

"So 12," says Flicker practically choking her, she still too dazed to protest. "This is your great ally."

I close my eyes. I realize how tired I am, of them, of this, of doing everything in my power to survive the next second before I am thrown another flaming hoop to jump through. And any sort of restraint I had instantly dissipates. Before I even realize what I'm doing I'm taking out one of my knives and grabbing Philomena as I stick it against her throat.

"You let go of her right now," I hiss, "or I kill one of your own."

Philomena whimpers. Shard looks worried but Flicker just shrugs his shoulders. "Fine with me. A life for a life."

"You're sick, you know that, Flicker!" I say. But I know that's not what will get through to him. I take a deep breath and silently apologize to 12. "But not as sick as I can be. Haven't you already realized how much I enjoy killing? I love it. It would be my pleasure to kill her. You should have already realized, Flicker, that there is no way for you to scare me. So please continue. This can only further serve my interest."

Even Flicker seems uneased mixed though it is still mixed with contempt. After a moment he throws the 7 girl to the ground.

Maybe this is a blessing in disguise. I shake my head. "Not good enough. I want more. I want the bow and arrows Shard has."

"No!" spits Flicker. "You have your girl now go!"

"Do you really want me to kill her?" I press the knife even further into her neck.

Shard doesn't hesitate at his district partner's safety. He takes off the bow and throws the arrows at my feet.

"Good," I say, loosening my grip on the girl. "See? That's all I wanted. Thank you so very much."

And just when I'm about to let her go, Flicker mutters, "You know, it's too bad what happened to your district partner."

I tighten my grip back on her despite her protests. "What? What do you know?"

Shard shoots an angry glance at Flicker. "He was about to let her go!"

Flicker ignores him. "All I'm saying is that it's a pity that you two didn't decide to team up. I think you've proven that you could've saved her. You just didn't want to."

That sets me off. I start digging the knife into Philomena's neck as blood starts to drain down, thinking only about Anna and her screams. I could've saved her. Why didn't I team up with her? "You tell me what you did to her right now! Did you kill her? I swear if you touched one hair on her head…"

"Flicker!" Shard says in horror and then holds up his hands in surrender. "We didn't kill your girl, 12, swear it's the honest truth."

"Yeah, well, then who did?"

"It was the boy from 8. He's been luring people onto the tropical side and killing them. That's where most people have disappeared to."

I'm almost stunned. It does make sense, a lot of people have been disappearing. And the 8 boy did catch my eye at the Reaping, that strange boy with an unsettling gaze. But I'm still unsure. "How do I know this is the truth, huh? Maybe you're just telling me this because you want to save your own skin." I press the knife against Philomena once more. "Maybe I should kill her just to be sure."

"Please, 12! I swear I'm telling the truth!" Shard says, looking devastated and my bloodlust instantly dissipates. I probably look insane, I probably _am_ insane. I instantly drop Philomena to the ground, bloodied and still crying.

"Better run, Careers," I say, trying to keep my voice steady. "The next time we meet is the next time you die."

"No," says Flicker and he says it so harshly with such venom in his eyes that it really does shake me, "the next time we meet is the time I take pleasure in your death." But they still clear off.

I find the 7 girl still are the ground, along with Danila who seems slightly dazed but no worse for wear. Both stare at me in fear though.

"Are you going to kill me then?" the girl asks bluntly.

I shake my head. "My fault you're still here. I misled them with jabberjays to think you and I were in an alliance. Besides, I think I've seen enough blood for today."

I help her up and then Danila. She starts to walk away but then at the last moment says, "Well, what about that alliance?"

"What?" I smirk. "You trust me enough to be in an alliance?"

"Hell no," she says. "But what happened there just proved to me that you're the strongest player in this arena and if you'll have me, I'll become your ally."

It strikes me as so strange. All everyone talked about before the Games was Killian. Now Killian might as well be dead and I'm the one that everyone either admires or fears.

The Capitol must be going crazy.

"Fine with me. Danila?"

He nods his head and then smiles. "Now we have as many people as the Careers."

It's true and I can't help but smile too.

The two bodies still haven't been removed yet since we're still so close to them. I go to remove my knives from them. I leave their weapons since it will just leave the arena with them.

I look over at the feast table. Two people didn't show. The first, 10, has a spiked mace. I try lifting it up and almost fall over from the weight. I shudder at the thought this tribute would have gotten this. I place it on the body of the 11 boy.

The other item is for 8. Netting. For luring. For trapping. My hands close over it so tight my knuckles turn white. Anna went into that jungle and was captured with netting like this and while Danila and I were laughing and joking together, she was screaming for me to save her.

_I'll repay that debt, Anna. If it's the last thing I do._

The girl and Danila must see this because they draw near with concerned faces. But I just throw it overtop of 9 and guide them far enough away that the hovercrafts come and take the bodies away.

"We won the Cornucopia fair and square," I say, "let's take full advantage."

* * *

><p>"So what's your name?"<p>

She pulls back a strand of her hair. With the fire flickering on her eyes, she doesn't look like the fearsome girl I first pictured but like a scared kid, like all of us really. "Aimee."

"Jay," I say. "And the young one's Danila."

I stretch back. This is the first real time since the Games began that I've felt safe or at least safe enough. It's so nice to just light a fire and not worry what time it is or drink water from the stream and not worry whether there's going to be enough for tomorrow.

This reflects in our conversation too. She opens up about her time so far in the arena as do we. Most of it has been the same. We both managed to snag some pretty good supplies. We both laugh about trying to kill each other. We both realized early on about the jabberyjays and the fact that the zones are always changing.

"Yeah," I say, "that was a good trick I played on the Careers, until today."

"Thank you, by the way," she says, the first sincere thing I think I've heard come out of her mouth. "You didn't have to stop for me but you did so…thanks."

We all fall silent for a moment and I know we are all really thinking about my bloodlust, that horrible black thing that seems to loom over everything I do. Every day it gets worse and worse. I don't even feel remorse anymore. Killing has become far too easy.

"I remember your Reaping," I say quietly, desperately trying to say anything to clear my mind, "you seemed like the worst competitor back then what with your axe. I'm pretty sure it scared me half to death!"

"I saw your Reaping too," Aimee replies back. "Didn't think much until I saw that girl of yours. What's her name again? Yordle?"

"Yondrie," I quickly correct. "Her name's Yondrie."

"Yeah. I know others said that she was just playing the crowds but that's not what I saw. I saw someone who was terrified of losing you." She pauses. "It was nice to see that, you know. In a Reaping. It's so rare you do."

Thinking about Yondrie only sears at my heart. At how much I miss her. I wonder what she's doing right now, if she's watching this or working at the Hob or out in the forest. Maybe she's looking at the watch I gave her and singing.

The thought sticks in my mind and before I really know what I'm doing, I'm singing myself:

_When I first came to this district in the Darkest of Times_

_I saw many fair lovers but I never saw mine_

_I viewed it all around me and saw I was quite alone_

_For me a poor stranger such a long way from home_

I remember Dad teaching me this, one of the first songs he ever taught me. I never liked it, I always thought it was strange, talking about moving about districts as if we could do such a thing. Dad explained that this song had existed far before the districts, even back when there was still a North America. It didn't really register with me. I had never known that world, why should a song change that?

But now this song takes on new meaning. I feel as if whoever wrote it knew about the Games, had been in them like us. Like they were separated from their love and their home just like me.

The whole arena falls silent which makes me realize that there are mockingjays as well as jabberjays here. In fact the birds surround us; some on the Cornucopia, some beside the fire, all staring at me with curiosity.

"Didn't know that mockingjays could grow so quiet," Aimee says softly. "Didn't know you could sing like that either."

"Well, it's sort of obvious," Danila says. "He is wearing a mockingjay pin."

"Yeah," I say but I'm not really listening. I'm focused on one bird that is perched almost against my foot, staring at me. I could just open my palms and he would fly into my hands. And I can't help myself, I do just that. He does fly, his sharp little feet digging into my flesh.

But he's not afraid. I could snap his neck right now but he still wouldn't flinch. Just because I have a voice he likes he thinks I can be trusted. He should know that that isn't how life works.

"Sing something else," Danila says eagerly. "Isn't there something of yours that they would sing?"

"Just one," I say.

"Well then what are you waiting for?"

I wince looking at Danila's smiling face. I shouldn't have mentioned it. There's no way I can sing the Hanging Tree in the arena without getting into serious trouble. The Gamemakers may let our poking fun of Capitol citizens by, they may let me sing a song with vague connotations of unrest, but they would never allow this.

I shake my head. "One song's good enough for now."

Danila gets up and whispers in my ear. "It might get us sponsors."

It might. But it will more likely get us all killed. I shake my head again. "Sorry, Danila. But it's not happening."

He seems disappointed which is a shame but I can't help it. He whistles some little tune and the mockingjays begin to lift off, singing his song amongst themselves. The bird in my hand seems eager to fly too and I certainly can't deny it something I will probably never have. I lift up my hands and let it fly up into the night.

"Why don't you guys get some rest," I say. "I'll take the first shift."


	12. Before: Becoming the Hunter Part 2

As soon as first light appears I start packing up my things, filling the water as much as I can to the brim. Just as I'm about to leave, Danila stirs, looking up at me in confusion.

"Jay, where are you going?" he asks tiredly.

"I think you already know the answer to that question." His eyes widen and I see the fear there again. Fear of me, of what I am capable of. Fear that I might not ever come back. "I'll be back before nightfall," I reassure him. "Until then stay close to Aimee, okay?"

He sits up and shakes his head. "Don't go."

"I have to. But I'll be back soon. You're going to be fine without me."

"That's not what I'm worried about." He looks at me seriously, the kind of seriousness no thirteen-year-old should ever have. "I'm worried about you."

"I'll be fine. Once I kill the bastard who murdered Anna."

He stands. "This isn't the way, Jay. I know you're upset about your district partner. It's understandable. But killing him isn't going to bring her back."

That only makes me angry. "Yeah but she called for me, Danila. She called for me and I couldn't help her. And he's killed countless others. Doing this not only ends his killing spree, it avenges her death. And her death needs to be avenged."

Unfortunately, that only makes him angry too. "Oh, and what? I haven't lost my district partner? I don't know what it's like? Should I avenge her death? Oh that's right, that would mean I would have to kill you!"

Our yelling is so loud that it has woken up Aimee. She doesn't say anything, though. I suppose she knows this fight is between us alone.

I have nothing to say to his accusation. I may make Anna's death right but I can never make Alyss's death right.

"Jay," he says quieter, "if you do this, something in you changes forever. Every time you have killed so far it has been in self-defence. No one can fault you for that. But if you hunt down this tribute, you change something in you forever. You're the hunter. You're the murderer. You're no better than him."

I sigh. Everything he says is true. But at the end of it I still push Danila aside.

"I'm sorry Danila but I have to go."

He's hurt. "Fine. Just don't expect me to be here when you return."

I don't say anything. I have to push it all aside if I want to track this tribute down.

The tropical side is as hot as the forest side is cold. Within seconds I'm soaked in sweat though I don't dare lose my coat. This world is also different than the one of the forest; the trees are wider, the branches sparser, the creatures strange looking things that I have never seen before in my life and by the looks they give me, have probably never seen humans before either.

I'm totally out of my element here but I don't care. I will do this. Even if I've never hunted before, I know from Kit's experiences. I start with broken twigs and twisted branches, any sort of sign something living has been this way. Unfortunately, tributes have been tramping all over the place and so there's damage everywhere, crisscrossing into oblivion. But perhaps that's not what I'm looking for. This boy's clever and he would probably have enough sense to cover his tracks. I need to look for something that's only the slightest bit off, like branches that look too perfect or ground that looks too even.

I find something of the sort about an hour or two later, mud that seems so perfect in surface as does the ground beyond, but I lose track of whatever I'm following only a few steps later.

I let groan out of frustration. Kit probably does too. The trail is probably just a step away and he's screaming at me to find it but I just can't.

I wander around for several more hours, finding nothing of real substance. I'm about to call it a day and head back when I notice something odd at the base of one of the trees. It looks like metal or wire and I'm excited because I've finally found something real. But it's only when I go to inspect it that I feel the ground giving away and lifting me up into the air.

I frantically twist around. A net. I'm in a net.

Stupid! I was so tired and eager for a clue that I rushed into trouble and now I'm stuck here. He probably has traps set up everywhere.

I try to twist around and reach for one of the knives on my belt but my hands are so tangled that they can barely move. In fact the more I move, the more twisted in the net I become until I can barely breathe much less move at all.

No. This can't be happening. There's no way I can call for help without 8 hearing and there's no way Danila or Aimee are going to come looking for me.

Time passes. I'm not sure how long. All I'm aware of is how hot it is in this forest and how tightly the net is wound around me. What if he doesn't come at all? What if he's just doing what I was planning on doing, setting up nets and leaving people to die? Somehow that's worse and I almost think of letting out a cry for help.

But I don't. If he's listening I don't want him to know I'm frightened or worried. I'm allowed to have this one resistance.

He finally appears as dusk settles, so silently that at first I don't even realize he's there. Like at his Reaping, he seems slightly off, a strange look gathering in his eyes but beyond that he registers no visible emotion at all.

He stands in front of me for a moment and I get the strangest feeling that this is how I look to the game I've trapped for the day. It's like he's killed so many that it doesn't even register anymore.

He takes out a sword and in one motion slices the net. I'm ready to fight as soon as I hit the ground but my body isn't. Everything's numb from the net and spikes of pain drive into me with every move I make. Instantly he has me pinned to the ground with the sword at my throat.

"12 boy," he says softly like we're having a nice chat in the Capitol. "You're a little far from home."

"Did you kill her?" It's the only driving thought left in my mind, the only thing keeping me sane.

"Who?"

"My district partner! Did you kill her?"

He nods his head without emotion. "Don't worry, she wasn't in any pain when she died."

I start fighting him at that. "You bastard, she called for me when she died! Don't give me that she wasn't in pain!"

He seems actually perplexed by this. "But she wasn't. I made sure of that. But if you keep fighting I'm afraid your death is going to be a little more difficult."

"You're sick, you know that!"

"No," he says with that quiet voice of his and starts crushing my windpipe with his hand so that I'm forced back down, "you're the one who's sick, 12. You're killing people for fun. I'm just staying alive."

I want to say that it's untrue but I can't even breathe much less speak. I realize that my assumption about this boy was wrong. I thought him delirious with bloodlust like me. But he's not. He doesn't love this, he's terrified of dying.

We're perfect opposites.

My eyes are blackening and I know I'll be going soon. But if that's so, I'm going down fighting. I shove against him as much as I can, but while I may be giving him a rough time I'm certainly not winning.

"Please," he says and he sounds scared, really scared, "I don't want to hurt you. If you could just-"

He never finishes that sentence. An arrow seems to come bounding out of nowhere, skewering his neck. In a flash our places are reversed and I have one of my knives out, ready to kill him.

I want to say something vengeful, to prove to everyone that Anna's death wasn't meaningless. But when I look down at this tribute all I see is a very scared, dying young boy. He isn't the one who killed Anna. He never will be. I slit his throat as quickly as I can.

And then I turn to where another boy has entered the clearing, his fingers still shaking on the bow though his aim was true.

"You didn't come back," Danila says quietly as Aimee has just entered with axe in hand. "I got worried that something bad had happened, even without the sound of a cannon."

"You saved my life," I say to him and smile. "Thank you."

* * *

><p>"So who's left?"<p>

"Well, there's us: you, me, and Jay," Danila says as he sits down near the fire, ticking us off on his fingers one by one. "Then there's the Careers: Flicker, Shard, and Philomena. Killian's also out there somewhere. And then there's…" he scrunches his face in remembrance but doesn't quite catch it.

I do. The mace. It still makes me shudder. "Boy from 10."

He nods his head. "So that means eight left."

Eight. Now they start interviewing our families and humanizing us because we actually have a chance of winning.

"How do you want to go about this?" Aimee asks. "I know you both are somewhat squeamish to the idea of hunting but it will go down much better if we start going after these people instead of the other way around. So far Killian seems all talk and no play. He has to be hanging near the Careers and is probably the easiest to catch."

I shake my head. I don't want to kill Killian, even if what she says is true. He saved my life. He saw my potential before anyone else. "Killian has that device, remember? The one that blasted out our eardrums. I'd rather not get into a fight with someone who has that kind of power. I say that we find Killian but we make him one of our allies, taking out the Careers with his device and then finding the 10 boy."

She looks doubtful. "No. It's too late in the Game to add people to our group. What about going after the 10 boy instead?"

"That'd be impossible. I don't even remember anything about 10, he's blended into the background so perfectly. We could spend a whole month searching this arena and never find him. We know where the Careers most likely are, taken over the Cornucopia now that we've left it. So let's go over there and end this."

"I really don't want to face the Careers now. They're probably anticipating an attack. We should wait and let them grow weaker."

"Guys," Danila says quietly and I look up since he hasn't said anything this whole conversation. "What happens afterward? I mean, when everyone else is dead and there's just the three of us?"

Aimee stares at him hard. "You've seen the Games before. I think you know very well what happens then."

"We'll make it fair," I edge in quickly. "We'll set an amount of time for us to separate and hide from each other." I try to say it nonchalantly even though I'm shattered to the core. I've been so focused on my bloodlust and trying to survive that I haven't been thinking about the end result at all. For a terrible moment I want our group to get ambushed just so that someone else gets to kill these people instead of me.

Well, I may not know much but I do know that if it comes down to it, I'm not killing Danila. Ever. I'll protect Danila even if it means Aimee's death. Even if it means my death. Even if it means I'll never see Yondrie ever again.

This thought haunts me long after we agree to just see what happens tomorrow and go to sleep. Aimee goes on watch and I try to find some sort of peace but all I see in my mind is Danila and I being forced to kill each other.

I must doze off because next I know I hear the snap of twigs getting closer and closer. I think perhaps it's just Aimee or Danila moving around until I feel someone's hands pulling out the dagger from my belt.

I have them pinned down before they can even blink and though I am horrendously relieved it's not Danila, I still find it sad that Aimee would literally stab me in the back like this.

She looks at me for a moment. "Are you gonna kill me now?"

"No," I say, "I won't. But I'm not going to let you stay in this camp anymore either. You take your axe and some food, I'll even let you have the dagger, but you leave now."

Awful relief. Let the others kill her now. Not me.

She doesn't fight once she's released, just grabs her things.

"I meant no offence," she says as she stands. "In fact you should take it as a compliment. I knew I had to take you out first if I wanted to win."

"I know," I say. "May the odds be ever in your favor."

It's meant to be a joke but it comes out hollow. She disappears into the shadows.

Somehow Aimee's leave does not settle me and I spend most of the night awake, watching the forest for any sign of trouble.

Danila wakes me midmorning, concerned at Aimee's disappearance.

"She was going to leave eventually," I say to him. "Besides, we have a better chance with just you and me."

He's not convinced.

We spend the rest of the day traipsing around, looking for something, any sort of trail on the other tributes. Nothing. Disturbingly the Careers are nowhere near the Cornucopia nor is anyone else and to top it off it seems that the Gamemakers have decided to make the entire arena unbearable weather with no breaks. No matter where we go, we can't find relief.

About halfway through the day we hear a scream followed by a cannon as a flock of birds wing off in the distance. Call me crazy but I know exactly who was killed.

Sure enough, District 7 flashes on the screen that night.

Aimee.

"Seven left," Danila says quietly. Only six to die and then we can all go home.

I really want to go home.

Another day passes, one long and hard just like the rest. Nothing. No one. Not even a cannon. At this stage of the Games that sets off an alarm in my head. It means one or more of the tributes are planning something. It means the Gamemakers have some evil plan to put in motion. It probably means both.

But as the night begins to fall, nothing is out of the ordinary and after such a long day with very little game – possibly a ploy by the Gamemakers to end the Games faster – we are both exhausted. So I don't I hear the footsteps until it's far too late.

"Well, what do we have here?"

I jump up to fight but there's no way I can take them all. Standing in front of me is Flicker with Philomena and Shard joining. They're crazed – not from blood though that might be part of it – no they seemed crazed with hunger, in their sharp bones and emaciated faces.

"Remember what I said 12," Flicker hisses at me. "You knew this day was coming and well, after we ran into your little friend, we managed to get some more information." He holds up the dagger and I shudder. "Don't worry," he says. "She didn't suffer. Not too much anyways. Not like you will."

I feel Danila tense up for a second and I think he's terrified but then I see him reach for his bow.

If we're going to die, we're going to take out as many as we can with us.

He only gets an arrow out before Philomena slices his leg right where I did days earlier. I let out a knife but it misses. And Flicker is tensed up with my dagger, ready to pierce it through my heart. So I do the only thing I can. I reach for the bomb.

They see too late what I've dropped, only just starting to run away before the entire world explodes into silence.


End file.
